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System of Variables (Rated: R)

PM list:
GastlyMan
Sepser
catzeye
KindrindraPart Zero: The Board

"If you look up here, you'll see a few numbers written on the board."

Oak paced across the length of his office continuously, never ceasing for any cause. The office was his actual home for most purposes, and he had been spending most of his nights here on his office at the island. He had to, because of the incompetence of those beneath him. Three experiments had died in the last week, and he wasn’t happy to say the least. It had all started with that bloody power failure. Oak scoffed; a warning from Zapdos indeed.

No, Oak doubted that any legendary Pokémon were involved in the accident, and with very good reasons. It was most likely one of those aides he kept running around the place. Some of them were getting restless, annoyed by the total secrecy of the project. Blaine and Pluto just weren’t enough to keep anyone in check anymore. There was always some excuse, a petty trifle that wouldn’t serve as justification in a normal situation, and the administrators just kept caving in. They didn’t seem to realize that lives were at stake here.

There had been deaths in the project, as was always to be expected. The master project had gotten one recently when some incompetent moron had chosen to ignore its power. He shook his head in disgust. For the best scientists in the world, they were very incompetent. All of them were the same, wasting the government’s money without a second thought. Thier projects cost millions of dollars, and they were just treating them like their average play kit that they used. These men wouldn’t know brilliance if they ran into it.

That may have been why he had commissioned the Cinnabar project; he was tired of being lonely. Not a single man in the known world could rival Samuel Oak in intelligence, and he knew it. Terra could, but it was different, more ancient: she had given him inspiration. He had been inspired to create something new, something better. He had tried just that on Cinnabar, gathering the best scientists in the world, and creating the best lab in Kanto with the hopes of creating life.

They had started simple, mere bug Pokémon being cloned, just to test the team under him. The project was pulled off without a hitch, and no major problems surfaced for months. They had moved on to more complex Pokémon, each experiment working spectacularly. Oak’s ambition could be contained no longer: they had tried to create a human.

The first project was a mere cloning, and it succeeded beyond all expectations, developing into a viable infant and flourishing. That wasn’t enough for Oak; he wanted something on his level. He wanted a superhuman of sorts, something new. The debates had raged for months, but eventually Oak’s power and influence won out, and the project began, with gene splicing projects working around the clock to create a new genetic strand: the first artificially created human. The cell was eventually fertilized, and the cloning process put in place. A suitable mother was selected from among the scientists, and the project had begun, with the pregnancy progressing as expected, with no major flaws.

Ambition soon became unchecked. Oak wanted something more, something unnatural. He had become fascinated by Terra privately, and wanted something like it. He wanted a Pokémon that could dwarf the mind of any human. He had organized a team of the best hunters to track down the suitable base species. This was eventually determined to be Mew, as it had DNA that could be very easily manipulated and copied; perfect for a cloning project. Among the team were two young trainers, already marked by incredible skill. They had since risen to prominence in the project, joining the elite council of four that reported directly to Oak.

The DNA was recovered, and the project began to create the ultimate being. The project had been costly, draining millions of dollars from government accounts, but it succeeded in the end, creating a new Pokémon. Oak had been called away by his position, and left the project in the hands of his colleagues.

Things had started to go wrong about a week ago. A power outage had devastated the island, causing several projects to die off, and the main specimen, the Mew clone, to briefly break free of its restraints. But the human was almost born, and the Pokémon was still alive, and the lab went on, albeit now filled with Oak’s impending wrath about the recent failures.

A quick knock rang out from the door. Oak glanced back up, "Come in."

Lance, a respected assistant with the project and one of the commisioned trainers walked in, and bowed awkwardly, a twisted smile on his face evading Oak's detection.

Oak nodded, and motioned for him to sit down. “Lance, I’m quite busy right now. Is there anything you wanted to talk about, or are you wasting my time?”

Lance shifted in his seat, “Well, it’s about the project.” Gramps motioned to go on. “A few people here were talking, and we decided that we don’t like it.”

“They can just get their *** off of the island then. Only the devoted have a place in Operation Dawn," Oak scoffed.

“Oh no, they’re devoted. Just not to you,” Lance rose to his full, rather impressive height, a cruel smirk on his face.

Oak banged his fist on the disk, “What the hell is this?” he shouted.

Lance laughed, a slow and evil laugh, as he gestured towards the doorway. A large upright figure in metallic armor walked in the open doorway, pausing at a hand signal from Lance. Oak gaped in shock, trying to find some sort of a reply. Anything at all. But he couldn't. The creature in the doorway being awake and functioning, much less under Lance's control, was impossible.“This would be a coup.”

The final battle. This was it. By no means, was it an easy match, with a powerful opponent backed by every piece of intelligence in the system matched upon my relatively weak Pokémon. In reality, that had nothing to do with it. I had a few tricks up my sleeve that gave him absolutely no chance. He had pressure. A lot of pressure. Just about everyone I had ever met was watching, and most of them expected me to fail. I knew I wouldn’t, but at the same time a doubt whispered at the back of my mind. Someone had once told me that the word “nightmare” was subjective. I was starting to believe it. Even if this was every kid’s dream, this wasn’t going to be pleasant. It wasn’t just a Gengar that I was facing. It was a lot more.

I glanced back up at the battlefield to confirm that everything was in place. My opponent was levitating on the other side of the clearing, waiting for me to start the battle. My Pokémon was fully formed and waiting in front of me, equally ready to go. “Alright Nidorino, let’s start this off on a high note. Go for a Shadow Claw across the chest.” Not nearly loud enough. It needed to be firmer, more commanding.

Nidorino leapt at his opponent, a cryptic grey aura forming around his claw. Gengar narrowed his eyes. The system was thinking. Right as the claw was about to connect, it seemed to register what to do. The ghost swiftly dodged to the side as the poison-type flew past him. “Again!” Nidorino hit the ground and pounced in the other direction, striking Gengar in the chest and sending him flying back.
Unfortunately, he was off the ground in a second and it was obvious he hadn’t been badly harmed. Just as expected. No one ever won their last battle by sheer force. Heck, the system probably hadn’t let the attack do any damage.

“Good, let’s try a different tactic. Use-“ He wasn’t listening. Nidorino was staring into Gengar’s eyes, oblivious to anything I was saying. For all practical purposes, he was dead to the world. I grimaced, realizing exactly what was happening. Every final opponent had some sort of trick. For Machamp, it was the constant confusion from its Dynamic Punch attack. For Clefable it was charming the opponent into not fighting. Charizard abused the sun. I had been almost certain that Gengar was going to try to shut down Nidorino by binding it with Psychic. Apparently it was Hypnosis in this battle. Unexpected, but definitely possible to overcome with just a little thought. Not that I had the time.

By this, Gengar’s eyes were glowing blue. Nidorino struggled in pain, but was bound in place.I recognized it: Dream Eater “Sleep Talk!” I yelled out, partially for Nidorino’s benefit, partially to make it look like I was in control. Thankfully, it did the trick. Nidorino began repeating its name quietly. I smiled a little for the cameras, but wasn’t exactly sure where this was going. For all I knew, this would just be even more humiliating than losing normally.

Suddenly, Nidorino stopped talking. His eyes still shut, he lunged forwards towards Gengar, his fist cloaked in poison. The impact sent my opponent flying backwards, and caused eye contact to break. Nidorino opened his eyes, a strange contorted frown on his face that I think represented anger. For everything the system could do, it was never good at showing emotion. Now it was time for the difficult part, the part where all planning stopped. The system never kept up a strategy that had been thwarted. It was moving to a reserve one, and I honestly didn’t know what it was going to be.

Gengar’s eyes glowed again as the system made its decision. This time, they were a pinkish glow, the color of a psychic aura. Brilliant. “Nidorino, Sucker Punch now!” Nidorino rushed forwards, slamming into Gengar’s gut and pushing him back before the attack could be completed. Everything was going according to plan now.

“Double Kick.” I made sure the command was clear enough so that it could not be misinterpreted. The system did have some override procedures where it would stop listening to anyone controlling it. However, for final tests the override could be overridden again if it was certain the commander intended it. And I was fairly certain that every override feature in the system was going to be alerted to a fighting attack used on a ghost.

Nidorino hesitated, the system racing to figure out what to do. And then he jumped. Gengar looked up, the system desperately trying to find anything that it could as to why this would ever be used. At the last moment, Gengar faded a little, becoming. As Nidorino fell through the ghostly outline, I smiled, not even noticing the cameras as I gave the final command of the battle, “Shadow Claw, now!” My opponent was shredded into ghostly essence from the inside out just before the world began to dissolve.

It was dark. Pure black, no light at all. I was… standing? Floating? I never could tell in that dream. Welcome, abomination. The voice rang out from all around me, as if the entire world was whispering. It has been some time since we could converse freely.

It seemed to be emphasizing ‘converse.’ That could only mean “You mean, talk?”

It paused for an unnaturally long period, and I wasn’t sure if it was even still there. I think that’s how mortals treat the word.

I stood in the silence. It had been years since it had first appeared, and there had been several years after the accident where it hadn’t appeared again. Why was it back now? And why did he want to do more than taunt me? “I don’t want to talk to you,” I stated firmly.

It sighed, which sounded like the entire universe was breathing out softly, with no wind flowing. Such a shame. I had two important things to tell you, but I think I can settle with the first. The world started to spin around, as light began to glow and form into objects. When it all settled, I was facing an image of my town. Or at least, something that looked like it had once been Pallet Town. The outlines of buildings, and even a few half-charred structures were still there, but the entire town had been destroyed. Ashes burned in the wind, and bodies and collapsed structures littered the ground. Smoke was still rising into the sky from the area that had once housed the lab. Do you want to know the tragic part of this? The second piece of information could have prevented this. It let out a loud, bitter laugh as the world faded once more.
The lights came back on, and I felt the full weight of the system. I paused for a moment to come to terms with situation. It had just been a dream. It wasn’t real. It hadn’t returned. Part of me lingered on the idea for something, catching that I’d overlooked some detail, but I didn’t care. I tore off the glasses and unhooked some of the cables as I’d done a dozen times before in the earlier tests, while a few of the Professor’s lab assistants took care of the more technical details associated with disconnect. I glanced around the room as they worked, trying not to linger on the dream. Most of the room was occupied in one way or another by the system. A large computer took up the entire backside of the room, humming away as it interpreted various strategies and created the worlds and situations for the tests later in the day. A single technician sat in front of it, busily typing something into the computer. Across the room, various wires and strange metal suits were set up in various patterns. All of them served a purpose, of course. Even with the bulk, expenses, and break downs it was the greatest virtual reality battle simulator in the world, and the system that governed every later exam in the Pallet school system.

The lab assistant at the computer glanced up at me, “Congratulations on the victory. Please enter the hallway and go left until you reach the main conference room. Wait there until you receive further instructions. Do you have any questions?” I shook my head, and left the room. It wasn’t exactly what I had expected to hear after passing, but I could understand the formality. There were a lot of people to get through today.

Outside of the room, the line of people waiting for their final exam was as long as when I’d left it. I was only the twelfth to go in the group of roughly 300 students qualified to take their final, so it was going to be a long day, even if the system was processing three people at a time. “How’d it go?” I couldn’t tell who said it, but most of the line had at least looked up to hear the answer. I put my thumb up, and walked away with a mostly fake smile on my face. I doubt I could’ve given a verbal answer if I’d tried. It’s not that I’m bad with people. In all reality, I’m actually fairly good at talking with people one on one. I’m just terrible with groups. Absolutely terrible. Seriously, there’s only one thing that scared me more. Well, at the time anyways. I’ve gotten better with people in the following years, and I’ve found much, much more frightening things. But that all came about later.

I wasn’t used to the hallway being empty. Normally when I was in the school, large groups of people were everywhere, and I had to push to get through. Today I could hear my footsteps, and the only other noise was the increasingly faint sound of the crowd behind me. I looked at the various rooms as I went by. I’d been in a few of them before as a student. After all, spending eight years in the building and having a wide variety of subjects to match ensured that I’d experienced quite a bit here. But all of that was just about over now.

Locker cleanout and the main portion of the school year were over. The final exams for those qualified to graduate were today. About one-third of my class, and most of the class above me were eligible this year for graduation. That didn’t mean by any standard that they all would pass the exam. The final exam was a very difficult test by any standard, and it required the skills of a master trainer to get through. To compensate, it wasn’t exactly required to graduate with a high school degree. It was required to graduate with a degree and a license, so most people took it anyways. Having your degree normally meant less than having a license anyways. To further motivate people, the professor himself gave anyone who passed the exam their first Pokémon, which was an enormous help in starting off a trainer’s career.

About three minutes of walking later, I was standing in front of the conference room doors. I’d never been in the room before, as it was normally only used by teachers, deans, and periodically people from the League or the lab. I paused for a moment, and pushed open the large wooden door, closing it gently behind me. There were only three other people in the large room. The school principle Mr. Venser was busy discussing something with Professor Oak, and another student in my age group was sitting in a chair, her legs crossed and headphones in. The professor looked up from his conversation, and began to walk across the room. “Eli, my boy, I’m so glad to see that you passed. Not that I ever doubted you would,” the Professor chuckled to himself, “I brought a friend with me today to celebrate with you.”

Professor Oak reached down to his belt, and unclipped a red and white ball from it. He wrapped his fingers around the orb, and clicked the white button on the front. After a short burst of red light, a small blue turtle appeared. “Squir, squirtle,” the Pokémon chimed. I smiled, not the fake smile I’d put on earlier, this one was real. I reached down to him and picked him up in my arms.

“How are you doing, buddy?” I asked. The Squirtle wiggled a little to gain a better position, but stopped moving and began to talk in his own language. After handling him for three years, I’d learned how to decipher some of it. However mostly I just nodded my head and picked up what I could. Professor Oak smiled, and went back to his conversation with the principle. Let me clarify this: I didn’t own, or train, Squirtle. He was the Professor’s Pokémon; I just cared for him at the lab. If I actually owned him, it would’ve been illegal prior to that day.

“Glad to see you passed,” the girl beside me mumbled. I looked over at her, to see that she had taken her headphones out and had her Charmander on her lap. She was the second of the three junior aides at the lab, and worked in the fire-type section with her Charmander. We’d had our share of disagreements, but didn’t really dislike each other. Well, I’m not actually sure what she thought about me. We talked sometimes, and it didn’t always break down into fights, but it did often enough. I just liked to imagine we were on better terms to keep her older brother –my supervisor- happy.

“Hello, Bianca. See you cleared your exam.” I kept it short and neutral. I’ve never known exactly what to say around her to create a conversation that wasn’t likely to break down, and had learned several times over that sarcasm and teasing should be reserved for Gary.

“Eh, Slowking was more annoying than I had imagined, but it still only took about twenty seconds,” she boasted with a smirk on her face. I was pretty sure she was lying, but didn’t bother pushing it. I later found out it took 26, not that it matters. Anyways, the look on her face told me she was in a decent mood, or at least not any state where she was likely to kill me, so I took a seat next to her and Squirtle jumped to the ground. “How did you scrape by?”

I ignored the wording, and just gave a straight answer. “Pretty well, actually. I wasn’t prepared, but I passed.” She folded the corner of her lip up in a half-smile of sorts, probably at something I’d said.

“I guess it’s to be expected that you wouldn’t know what a reasonably smart battler would do. He went for Hypnosis, right?” She was going back to her iPod, just barely paying attention to the conversation.

“Yeah, how’d you know that?” I asked. Hypnosis had never really occurred to me.

She glanced back up, and stared at me for a moment as if I’d asked her the stupidest question she’d ever heard. “Well, it’s the best option. Psychic is great for damage, but can be stalled by Substitute and Dark Auras. That, and no final test ever plays that aggressively. Burn is a nice stalling tactic, but Nidorino knows quite a few special attacks as well, so it would be too easy to avoid. Perish Song leads to a tie, which is simply settled by a redo. Hypnosis, on the other hand, has only one good way around it, is unlikely to be predicted by a rookie such as yourself, and shuts down the opponent to later by blasted away by hexes. It’s simple really.” With that, she turned up her iPod to full volume, blocking out the conversation completely. Squirtle hopped back on my lap, and I stroked his shell for the next few hours while waiting for the tests to conclude.

Thirty people later and the only person I really wanted to see in the room walked in. It honestly didn’t surprise me at all that Gary passed, as he could reliably outscore even Bianca in all of the battling strategy tests. His grandfather didn’t even have to rig his match for an easy test to make sure that he would win. He glanced around the room, and quickly spotted Bianca and I sitting next to each other. He walked over, and started the conversation in his usual manner “Eli, Bianca, what’s up?”

I gestured towards my ear, and he gave a silent laugh as he reached over and ripped the headphones out of her ears. Bianca immediately shot her face up, and glared daggers at Gary who just smirked. "What was that about?” she demanded.

Gary held up his hands in a mock defensive gesture. “Hey, I just wanted to talk,” he replied.

“I, obviously, did not.” She tried to put her headphones back in, but found them in a Bulbasaur’s vines by the time she reached them. She narrowed her eyes even further, but before she could yell at Gary the entire conflict was interrupted.

“Gary, Bianca, Elisha, it’s nice to see that all of my aides passed.” Oak had walked over to the group, and seemed completely oblivious that one of his junior aides was about to murder his grandson, although I suspect this was purposeful. “After the graduation ceremony is done, could you guys see me at my office.”

“Of course,” I shot in before Gary or Bianca could protest it on the basis of not wanting to be with each other. “I’ve got some stuff at the dojo to take care of, but after that, I’ll come over.”

Gary rolled his eyes, “Come on, gramps, I practically live there. I’m sure that all three of us feel the same way,” his eyes drifted over to Bianca.

She crossed her arms and legs in her ‘I really want you to butt out of my life’ gesture, and huffed out “I guess.”

“Good, good. We’re about two-thirds of the way through the list, so until we’re done, celebrate with your peers,” the professor glanced between Gary and Bianca, “and try not to kill anyone.” With that, he turned around and went back to his discussion with the principle.

“Great advice,” Bianca growled as she took her headphones from Gary’s Bulbasaur and put them back on.

“Well, someone doesn’t want to talk today.”

“Gary, when has she ever wanted to talk?” I replied.

He shrugged, “True enough. Anyways, after Oak’s done with his little discussion, let’s have a practice battle tonight.”

I stared at him blankly, “Practice battle? But neither of us even have-“

“So what if neither of us have a Pokémon of our own? We have our license now, so we can command anything that’ll listen to us. And that’s assuming that gramps doesn’t give us Squirtle and Charmander, which he probably will. We’ve got nothing to worry about,” he interrupted.

I paused for a moment, and listened to the buzz of other conversation in the room. He was right. After today, I could legally have a Pokémon battle. That was going to be strange, to put it one way. Simulator fighting was one thing, but actual battles would be another thing entirely. It would be something like the difference between Zelda and actual fencing. “My mom will probably want to talk to me.”

Gary’s face sunk a little. “Oh, right.” He thought for a moment, and replied, “So, how about we do it at eight or so?”

“Yeah, that would probably work.” From there the conversation varied dramatically, from sports to battling to television and back, racing across anything we could think of for the next two hours. Eventually, it was time to take the stage. When it was all said and done, only about fifty people would be graduating with a license, diploma, and Pokémon.

There we were. All forty-eight of us lined up behind the doors leading to the stadium stage, where the principle was giving his address to the crowd. I could hear his voice echo through the stadium, but couldn’t actually make out a word he was saying. That’s when they started calling out names out the names. It was time to go out and face the crowd. “Bianca Aethus,” I decided to focus upon the person being called when it came time to go out. It kept my mind off the crowd before me. Bianca strode out across the stage, her faded jeans brushing against the stadium floor and the sleeves of her brown coat moving with the rhythm of her pace as she walked. “Elisha Ambrose,” I wanted to shut my eyes, but I had to cringe with them open. I hate my full name. It just sounds way too girly. I stare up at a screen as I walk, focusing more on my image than the crowd. It’s always best to stick with the familiar. My muscular arms were covered by my long, grey jacket. My black hair was tucked away under a white baseball cap, and I pulled down the bill a little further in case my composure broke a little. I was grateful to see that it was holding up.

And so it went, focusing in on the name of a classmate, thinking over the memories of the best to avoid the present. I remembered events from the last seven years, and realized that it was all about to end. For better or worse, this was the last I would see of some of them. Of course, Gary appeared the most confident of any of us, giving a small wave to the crowd as he walked out. He didn’t bother to cover up his brown hair, and probably couldn’t have anyways. It was pretty spiky, and he probably didn’t have a hat that could fit on it anyways. Eventually the names came to an end, and the Professor himself came to the stage to give his address.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Professor Oak, director of the Pallet Laboratory and governor of the town. I have come here for a truly special purpose today, and one of the highlights of my job. These young men and women we are honoring today have worked towards their dream for many, many years and have finally arrived at the end of one path, and the start of one much larger. The journey will be different for all. Some will choose to become researchers, others the workers that keep the nation together, others soldiers in the army.”

“Regardless, every journey is equally important and difficult in its own way. They will encounter new allies, as well as new rivals. Challenges that we can’t even imagine may arise in the next generation, and they must be prepared to deal with those as well. There will be moments of immense joy and sore misfortune before them, and I wish them all the best. But at the same time, I know they can all succeed if they keep their focus on who they are, where they came from, and where they are going. Everything else is just another variable.”

Two men watched a boat fade into the distance from there safe position on top of the island. "Champion, do you really think he's given up?" The shorter of the two asked.

The taller man, dressed in a red cape and a blue suit almost resembling armor shook his head. "No, he'll try to retake his title eventually. It might not be for years, but we had best be ready."

A long silence began before the shorter man, dressed in a black trench coat spoke. "I can help you, my resources are yours."

The taller man turned towards the second one and smiled. "Tell me, Giovanni. Would you mind running Viridian? I need someone there to keep an eye on the old man in case he tries anything."

The shorter man nodded, and focused his eyes on the ship that was now almost invisible on the horizon.

Firstly this didn't really seem like a prologue but an actual chapter as a prologue is more often used to set up for the chapters and characters usually isn't introduced. I like the way you did it however. it was kinda strange how we got no description of them before later. And as only a few of them seem to come from canon it was hard to imagine them. You got to that later though and it worked out fine. Another thing i liked was that you didn't make a typical Gary character. This one seemed mor likable and not quite as snobby.

I think that was a great start and i can't wait for the next chapter given i haven't read Flames of Dawn.

Firstly this didn't really seem like a prologue but an actual chapter as a prologue is more often used to set up for the chapters and characters usually isn't introduced. I like the way you did it however. Alright, I know what a prologue is supposed to do. I was juggling between this and a more conventional prologue, but eventually opted for this to save the many things revealed in that draft for later.
it was kinda strange how we got no description of them before later. And as only a few of them seem to come from canon it was hard to imagine them. Eh, description. I seriously dislike description sequences, as they always seem kind of weird to throw in. Although I probably should go back and edit more of that into chapter one now... Thanks for the comment!
You got to that later though and it worked out fine. Another thing i liked was that you didn't make a typical Gary character. This one seemed mor likable and not quite as snobby.That's for several reasons. One being that I have yet to meet a single person nearly as arrogant as Gary Oak, and I view it as kind of unrealistic. The other is that I always like having a sarcastic character and a seriously anti-social character in stories. Gary didn't fit either, and the other role was taken, so I went with the sarcasm thing.
I think that was a great start and i can't wait for the next chapter given i haven't read Flames of Dawn.Flames is not necessary at all to understand this fic, and most parts of it that are not in this draft are excluded for a reason. You aren't missing anything.
PS. Can i be on the Pm list please?YAY!

Anyways I enjoyed the prologue a lot. I like how it starts off on a positive note with the students passing their exams and graduation. It set up the fact that our protagonists are starting a new chapter in their lives. A chapter that will be both exciting and terrifying.

The virtual reality battle system really impressed me. It makes sense to have a simulator for testing kids instead of holding hundreds of Pokemon in a storage room that have to be fed, cleaned and taken care of on a daily basis. With a simulator you can just program every Pokemon you want.

I agree with Sepser about Gary. I'm glad to see him not portrayed in his usual arrogant, I'm-the-baddest-thing-ever manner.

At the end of the prologue I noticed how Professor Oak talked about how "Everything else is just another variable". I liked how it linked back to the title of the story. Plus it's a true statement. No matter what you do, you can't control every variable that comes your way.

Overall good start. I can't wait to see how this turns out. Please add me to the PM list.

Anyways I enjoyed the prologue a lot. I like how it starts off on a positive note with the students passing their exams and graduation. It set up the fact that our protagonists are starting a new chapter in their lives. A chapter that will be both exciting and terrifying.A moment in a fic that I wrote that comes off as positive? How the heck did I let that happen. Oh wait, terror foreshadowing. Nvm.
The virtual reality battle system really impressed me. It makes sense to have a simulator for testing kids instead of holding hundreds of Pokemon in a storage room that have to be fed, cleaned and taken care of on a daily basis. With a simulator you can just program every Pokemon you want.The basis for it is that I really liked the opening of XD, and wanted to put it together with the opening of RBYFRLG. However, there's a bit of symbolism behind it as well that may or may not be explained later.
I agree with Sepser about Gary. I'm glad to see him not portrayed in his usual arrogant, I'm-the-baddest-thing-ever manner. If you ever meet a real person who acts like Gary Oak, I want to know.
At the end of the prologue I noticed how Professor Oak talked about how "Everything else is just another variable". I liked how it linked back to the title of the story. Plus it's a true statement. No matter what you do, you can't control every variable that comes your way.That's not the last you'll here of variables and equations. And there's a bit of symbolism with it too that can honestly be interpreted in many more ways than even I'm aware of.
Overall good start. I can't wait to see how this turns out. Please add me to the PM list.Thanks! I'll put you on soon.

Comments in Bold, which is now my favorite style for this stuff. Anyways, glad to see you came back to read the... I'm not even sure what to call this one. I guess the next version? The project is called NS1.3.0 in my notes, so I guess next version would be appropriate. Anyways, writing Chapter One now, and working out some details. Description and dialogue continue to annoy me greatly, and I'm really in need of some advice on how to improve there. Regardless, all comments are appreciated!

After reading the information at the top, I didn't really feel like reading a fan fic (not that the information caused it, of course). I was about to click back... but then your first sentence hooked me.

Do you wish you could do things like in the anime?
Do you wish you could dodge behind a rock to avoid an attack?
Do you wish that you could use the arena to stop your opponents cold?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, the Pokemon Anime Style Battling League could be for you!

After reading the information at the top, I didn't really feel like reading a fan fic (not that the information caused it, of course). I was about to click back... but then your first sentence hooked me.

Bold isn't working on my phone today, so I'll just reply down here. Yeah, I was wondering if the preface length was a bit long. I'll try to edit out everything that isn't necessary now. And yay, PM list grows! Thanks for the review.

Alright, due to staffing at a camp for the next few weeks my posting schedule will be a bit irregular and I'm still trying to figure out how and when I plan on getting chapter two done. Until then, thanks to all who reviewed the last chapter! You guys make writing this worth it.

Part One: The Equation

"This is your starting point in solving the system. Everything else will be done by manipulating these two sides until the unkowns are revealed."

Chapter One: Assignment

In a hospital bed, a woman lie down, eyes closed, and apparently unconcious. A middle aged man with graying tan hair lie unconcious beside her, his face appearing to be unable to settle on an emotion. Finally he sighed, and breathed out, "Lauren."

"Mhm," the woman barely opened her mouth and whispered.

"The child..."

"Don't worry about him," she said, her voice hoarse.

"You will take care of him, right?"

She opened her eyes, and gave the best attempt at a glare she could cast given her momentary weakness and benign personality. "Of course."

"Alright."

The brief dialogue concluded, the woman closed her eyes and slipped into sleep.

I pushed my way through the crowds of people, really just wanting to be out of there. I can normally handle crowds if I’m just a member of the group with nothing to single me out. But that doesn’t mean I like it. There was really only one person here I wanted to talk to anyways, and they would understand if I left now and talked later. Besides, I had to go half-way across town and back in about an hour. You can’t do that if you sit around wasting time.

Just as I was almost out of the crowd, I heard someone yelling behind me. “Hey, Eli wait up!” I turned around to see Gary pushing his way through the swarm of people behind me, and he paused to catch his breath for a moment before he spoke again. “So, aren’t you heading over to the lab with us?”

I sighed, and kept walking as he tried to match my pace. “Look, I already said I was going. I just have to stop by the dojo and take care of something before hand,” I replied.

He shrugged and kept on walking in silence for a minute or so. “Why couldn’t you do it after the meeting at the lab?”

I smiled a little. “Well, I have two reasons.” Gary nodded to signify I could go on, “One: the professor will probably take a while to get to his lab. Wasting daylight sitting around isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. The second is that while watching you get on Bianca’s nerves can be entertaining, I don’t particularly want to deal with it today.”

“More like you don’t want to deal with testifying at the murder trial,” Gary responded.

I smiled. Leave it to Gary to joke about felonies. “That too,” I laughed. We walked on in silence, not talking for the mile-long trip. Talking slows me down, and I really didn’t want to be late to the meeting. Normally being late does nothing to improve the mood of a situation. In Gary’s case, he was just trying to keep up. It’s not that he’s out of shape –he’s not- it’s just that I walk “fast enough to attract all the female Rapidash in Kanto,” as Gary put it. I just see no point in wasting time if I don’t have to. Today I’d already spent a few hours waiting for the tests to get done. I didn’t want to add anything more.

When we got to the dojo, Gary paused to catch his breath while I went ahead towards the doors. The building itself had a concrete exterior with as little to mark it as possible. All there was to signify the purpose of the building was a simple, wooden sign over the door that read “Pallet Blade Dojo: School of Fencing.” We honestly didn’t want every little kid in town coming over to try to stab something with a sword, so we didn’t make any efforts to advertise. If you cared enough about it, you would probably know someone who would tell you about the place.

Unfortunately, the door was locked. I hadn’t exactly realized that anyone with a key would’ve been at the graduation tests and would probably be walking slower than I was. As that sat in, I glanced down at my watch. It was already 5:15, and I didn’t have any time at all to wait around in front of the building while the Professor and Mom waited, so I would come back later tonight after my battle with Gary. Unfortunately, the trip had just been a waste of time. I jogged back over to Gary, who was leaning against the concrete walls of the building. “Come on, we’re going to the lab.”

Gary stood up, and began running to catch up. “Done already?” he asked. I just shook my head and kept walking. I really didn’t want to talk about it.

The walk back to the lab took a bit longer than the walk to the dojo, even though the distance was slightly shorter. The gradual release of people from the school was almost over by that time, and cars and pedestrians were everywhere. By the time we got to the lab, it was already 6:00. Despite the fact we were probably late, I couldn’t help but slow down and stare up at the building. Whenever I saw it, which is pretty much daily, I can’t help but feel impressed by it. The Professor’s lab was easily the largest structure in Pallet, and that’s just the main building. The compound behind it stretched out for miles and occupied pretty much the entire north-east corner of the town. If the size alone wasn’t impressive, it was simply the fact that every part of the building’s outside was meant to look impressive. The front wall was covered in shiny stainless steel, with a large black doorway leading into the building.

However, my attention soon found itself elsewhere. Bianca was outside the doors with a generally murderous look in her brown eyes. She was tapping her foot on the ground, arms crossed across her coat and a scowl on her face. I had a pretty good idea of what she was mad about as well. Gary and I exchanged nervous glances, and then walked towards her. It’s not like we could get in the building any other way. She glared at us as we approached, but didn’t speak until we were within a few feet.

“Where have you been?” she hissed out, even though it was pretty obvious there wasn’t an answer she would tolerate.

“We were running an errand at the dojo, but got delayed by the crowds on the way back,” I replied.

“You do realize that I’ve been waiting here for half an hour, right?” she went on, disregarding my answer.

At that point, I just walked past her and went inside. Given free rein, we probably would’ve been out there for another hour. Besides, it wasn’t like anyone had died from the incident. And I really didn’t want to go through the rather tiresome process of getting yelled at. Within a few seconds, Gary had followed me through the glass doors, and Bianca reluctantly followed soon after, but made it clear she didn’t want to. At the entrance to the lab, the receptionist nodded at us as we came through, probably aware of where we were going and used to seeing us here anyways. The inside of the lab wasn’t quite as impressive as the inside, and the dominant move was actually chaos. Aides ran through the hallways to and from the various departments, each of them rushing something critical to somewhere else. It wasn’t easy keeping the lab operating, and these people knew that fact all too well.

The professor’s office wasn’t particularly far from the entrance to the building, and it took us less than a minute to get there. We paused at the doorway, unsure of what the proper way to ask permission to enter the professor’s office was. Being late, we really didn’t want to start this off on a bad note. “We,” referring to Bianca and I. Gary just went up and opened the door, leaving us to follow him in.

The professor’s office was a smaller room, just large enough to hold a medium-sized bookshelf, the Professor’s desk, and a few chairs on the other side of it. The truly remarkable part was the view behind it. The office opened up to the Plains Area, where a view of wild Pokémon normally only found in the Safari Zone could be seen. It was absolutely beautiful at sunset.

The Professor glanced up from the report on his desk, and waved his hand to tell us to sit down. The Professor very rarely called us to his office for a meeting. When he did it was always something important. He sat staring at his report for another minute or so, and then typed something into his computer, before he finally turned back to us, and folded his hands in front of him to signify his attention was on us.

“First off, I want to congratulate you on your success today, but you probably know that is not why I called you here,” he stated. “I called you here for two things. The first you were probably expecting, the second you probably were not.” He paused for a moment as he cleared his throats. “The first item is that I would like to give you these.” He put three Pokéballs on the desk in front of him, making sure to place them in front of the right aide. “These contain the Pokémon you have been taking care of for the past few years that have now become your starters.”

We each tried to thank him, but he held up his hand to signal that he wasn’t done yet. “As you are receiving these tonight, you will not be receiving them with the rest of the graduating students tomorrow. In order to avoid the uproar from the group that you received your starter a day early, I have an assignment for you for the next day or two to get you out of Pallet and help get your Pokémon training careers started.”

He shut his eyes and paused for a moment before continuing. “I am expecting a very, very important package to arrive from the Plateau tomorrow in Viridian. I have left the job open to you. Along the way you may catch more Pokémon to add to your team, and bond further with your starters, this time as their trainer. Are there any questions this far?” We all shook our heads no. I did have quite a few questions. However, I didn’t expect to get a brief answer to any of them.

“Good, I expect you all to be here at six o’clock tomorrow morning with supplies for the day in order to make it Viridian before nightfall. I have already notified your guardians about this, and all legal issues have been cleared up. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” He paused, and in a tone that broke the formal tone of his address, he continued, “I’m sorry about the short notice, but the League isn’t particularly good with informing leaders when supplies will arrive.”

With that, we all stood, thanked the Professor, and left the room as he went back to his computer. Once we were all outside, Gary shut the door and we stood there in the hallway. I was still holding the Pokéball in my hand; still in disbelief I was holding it. Gary was tossing his up in the air, staring down the hallway, his mind elsewhere. Bianca had already put hers on her belt and was looking at the two of us. “So, we’re the lucky ones who get to run off and fetch something for the Professor, right?” she asked, her voice half-way between serious and sarcastic. I couldn’t honestly tell what she meant by that, whether she was expressing displeasure or gratitude, so I just nodded my head. Gary caught his Pokéball and stared over at her.

“I have no idea if that was sarcasm or not, but if it was the universe is in serious trouble,” he stated. Bianca glanced at him with an incredulous look that would have shut me up instantly, but Gary continued, “What? I mean it says in the Book of Endings that when the unpleasant one mocks the world, the heavens will open and the trumpets will-“

“Alright, I think we get the picture,” Bianca was making an expression that surprised me more than anything else that day. She was almost smiling. Her lip was slightly upturned and wasn’t necessarily a sign of happiness, but it was an actual emotion. “Good night. I’ll see you guys up here in a few hours.” With that, she walked down the hallway towards the door. She certainly wasn’t skipping, but there was some sort of renewed energy in her step.

As Gary and I stared down the hall, Gary voiced our thoughts perfectly. “Now, I’m scared.”

It took me a few minutes to get home, but I think I can safely skip over that. I wasn’t particularly worried about Mom freaking out over my absence. I know that makes her sound like a horrible person, but it’s not like neither of us had ever stayed later than intended at the lab. Although to be fair, it was normally her. Right before I opened the door, I remembered someone. I reached down to my belt, and unclipped the Pokéball that held Marine, my new Squirtle. I hit the button in the middle, causing the red and white orb to swell a little.

I tossed the ball in the air, catching it as it came down. At about the top of the balls ascent, it burst open, with a beam of red light coming from the opening between the halves. As it neared the ground, the light began to take the shape of a Squirtle, and when the light faded the Pokémon was left in its place. I must admit, Squirtle isn’t exactly a common Pokémon outside of the seas between Pallet Town –itself a sleepy supply center for Viridian- and the mostly abandoned Cinnabar Island. In other words, it wasn’t common anywhere.

Anyways, the blue, upright turtle only came up to my knees, and the curly tail and happy expression on his face just screamed cuteness. I normally don’t care about that kind of stuff, but I smiled. The fact that I was now his trainer and he was my Pokémon was only starting to sink in. I’d only been used to handling the personality-filled reptile as a friend, although I was fairly sure he viewed himself as the boss in the relationship. I had no idea what to do now that I technically owned him? Was I supposed to be his boss or something? Marine settled the issue for now by thumping his tail against the door to signal that he wanted in, and Mom opened it less than a minute later.

At age thirty-five, Mom was fairly young to have a fifteen year-old child, but this wasn’t ever discussed. In fact, I’m still not sure of many of the details concerning my birth at all, aside from the accident. That aside, she always wore the same outfit almost every day; a white shirt that doubled as a lab coat and a pair of dark jeans. There wasn’t much need to be formal at the lab. Other than that, the only thing really worth mentioning would be the eyes. They were silver, and almost seemed to shine abnormally bright in the moonlight. She brushed her black hair over her shoulder shortly after opening the door, and let Marine and I in. Marine immediately rushed forwards. He wanted to greet some of Mom’s Pokémon he’d gotten to know from his occasional trips home. I’m not entirely sure if he realized it yet, but this was his home now, too.

As Squirtle began to eagerly talk with Lucario, who seemed much less in the conversation than the water-type, Mom and I sat down at the table. There was some food set out that we ate, but forgive me if I can’t exactly remember what after however long it’s been. Regardless, I remember the conversation fairly well.

“Good job on the exam,” Mom began.

“Thanks, but it wasn’t too-“

“No, that was an extremely hard challenge. The professor himself selected possibly the most difficult exam in the system to give to you, and he wanted more than anyone to see you pass. Believe me, I’m serious about the praise,” she interrupted. I just sat back trying to think over that. The professor himself had given me what he considered to be the hardest challenge? I couldn’t think of why he would give it to me of all people. Perhaps he’d wanted me to fail. I decided to ask him later.

“Yeah, I didn’t really see the Hypnosis and Dream Eater coming,” I confessed. “Not to mention the crowds.”

My mother nodded, understanding exactly what I was referring to. “Well, it’s been a while since I was a novice trainer, but I don’t remember being thrilled the first time I battled in front of an audience. I still get a little nervous whenever I speak to a crowd. I think I can safely say that no one enjoys the crowds. In fact, some of the greatest men and women in the world will do everything they can to avoid public appearances. Trust me; stage fright is nothing to be ashamed of.”

Her pep talk reassured me a bit. At the same time, it made things worse. There was a problem with words. They took on the power of what they described. Often nothing at all. There had to be some sort of value behind the letters to make it worth something.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I said. I tried to make it sound convincing, but I’m not entirely sure she fell for it. She was abnormally keen at seeing through things, and I wasn’t the best liar to be honest. Whether she noticed it or not, the concern left her face and she went back to eating. By this time, Marine had already woken up Gloom, and the two were arguing about something. I hoped Marine learned his lesson last time and wouldn’t push it too. It wasn’t fun taking a poisoned Squirtle to the Pokémon Center.

I wanted to talk to Mom about so many things, but unfortunately time was running out. Gary had wanted to meet me at eight, and it was already seven-thirty. It took me about thirty minutes to get where he would be waiting, so I had to leave soon. When I finally got the food cleared off of my plate, I stood up and thanked Mom for dinner. When she asked where I was going, I told her Gary and I wanted to meet up. She hesitated before approving as if there was something more she wanted to say, but eventually let me walk out the door, Squirtle in tow.

It was still chilly in the evenings. May isn’t exactly Summer yet in the Pallet area. Temperatures did tend to drop as the sun went down. I didn’t notice very much, but Marine certainly did. Squirtle were native to warmer waters, and their bodies took on the temperature of the air or water around them. Marine ran on ahead of me, occasionally trying to run on two legs, but frequently tripping and falling back down to four. I was walking slower than normal, which was still fast, thinking about things. Mostly I thought about the upcoming battle. Gary’s Bulbasaur had a natural type advantage, not to mention a more skilled trainer. However, Squirtle was a naturally faster Pokémon and better at taking hits. But that wouldn’t save me if I didn’t have a strategy. The problem was, I couldn’t exactly be sure it would work. This wasn’t a simulation where the opponent would always operate by a certain method. This was much more real and unpredictable.

However, as the walk went on, my thoughts began to drift to the next day. Over the next few days I would be given the chance to encounter and catch some of the first Pokémon on my journey. What would they be? I mentally made a note of every common Pokémon in the Viridian City and Route One areas, and began to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of all of them. I was almost done by the time we reached the hill.

“The hill” was an elevated area outside of the Professor’s lab. From the top, most of the valley that Pallet Town was in could be seen stretching out. It wasn’t exactly a big city, with a population barely reaching into the thousands, but it was fairly important. The Professor’s lab was arguably the most important in the Republic, only rivaled by the Safari Zone in Fuchsia and Silph Co. in Saffron. Most of the town was connected in one way or another to the massive complex that stretched out just in front of the hill. It was an amazing view of my life; it was unlikely there would be many, if any, major events in the life of anyone born in Pallet that would occur outside of the city. Of course, tonight wasn’t exactly a time to reminisce. I glanced up at the top of the hill, and saw the silhouette of Gary waiting for me.

“Nice night for a battle isn’t it?” he called down. I nodded, although he probably couldn’t see it in the dark, and ran up to meet him. He had a black jacket on over his normal white shirt, and was tossing his Pokéball up in the air repeatedly. I knew him well enough to know that meant he was nervous, excited, or both. Probably both in this case. “Well, let’s get this started. You lose if you withdraw your Pokémon or it faints. We shouldn’t need a ref.”

I was a bit more worried. Pokémon battling was a dangerous sport to begin with, and doing it without a ref just increased the risks, I wanted to point that out, but didn’t see a point in doing it. “Yeah, let’s-“

“Are you two really going to battle without anyone watching?” a familiar voice interrupted. We turned down the hill to see someone walking up, faintly illuminated by a fire beside them.

“Well, men don’t exactly need all of the sissy rules you do, but if you insist you can watch,” Gary called out, and Bianca frowned as she reached the top of the hill. Whatever had gotten into her earlier had clearly passed.

“Gary, just let her ref,” I pleaded. I agreed with Bianca on this one. Battling new Pokémon without anyone reffing it was just an accident waiting to happen.

Gary shrugged, and Bianca walked over to the halfway point between Gary and I. “Alright, this will be a one on one battle between Gary’s Bulbasaur and Eli’s Squirtle. A Pokémon is considered unable to battle if it doesn’t move for ten seconds or faints. Additionally, if a Pokémon is withdrawn it is considered unable to battle. Are there any questions? If not, you may begin,” Bianca stated.

“Alright, Ivy let’s go for a Vine whip!” Gary commanded. Bulbasaur raised one of her vines and slammed it into the ground directly in front of Marine, who was barely out of range. As Marine jumped back, I began to think. The chances of Bulbasaur having an attack with much range were low, and that could definitely be used to my advantage.

“Jump back and use Bubble,” I shouted. Marine immediately jumped back even further.He shot out a steady stream of bubbles from his mouth, which foamed up with air and water. He released the bubbled, and they drifted towards the grass-type on the other side of the field. They weren’t racing there by any means.

Gary glanced across the battlefield, “Destroy the bubbles with Vine Whip.” Bulbasaur lashed out again. Ivy struck through the bubbles floating over the field, popping them. The ones that did reach the dinosaur did pathetically little. Ranged attacks weren’t going to do much either. “Sorry, Eli but you’re going to have to do better than that. Avoiding my attacks is just wasting my valuable time.”

I realized he was probably right. I wasn’t going to end this from a distance, so Squirtle was going to have to go into direct fire. “Rapid Spin forwards,” I ordered. Marine looked up at me strangely, not entirely trusting my authority yet. I’m not sure I would either if someone ordered me to rush into a super effective attack. I nodded to signify I was serious, and Marine withdrew into his shell. The Squirtle spun forwards with increasing speed. I wondered if this was really a good idea.

Gary looked up curiously, trying to figure out what I was trying to do. “I have no idea what you’re trying to do here, but it was a mistake. Ivy, grab him with Vine Whip to show him how it’s done,” he called. Bulbasaur extended her vines out towards Squirtle, and time seemed to slow down.

Bulbasaur’s vines made contact with the water-type, and hooked on. To his credit, Marine kept spinning, tearing into the vines that held him. Water and a green liquid scattered across the field as Bulbasaur was wounded. Ivy instinctively retracted his vines, and I almost gagged. There were large tears and scrapes on them from trying to hold the spinning Pokémon; some leaking a strange green substance. Probably blood. While it probably wouldn’t be fatal, it definitely was painful.

Bianca stood there staring at the carnage, her face momentarily drained of color. She was biting her lip. She seemed to be in shock. Gary almost immediately unclipped his Pokéball from his belt and withdrew the Bulbasaur. Ironically, he was the one who almost succeeded at keeping his composure. “Alright, Eli I guess you took this one. I’ll see you both tomorrow,” he blurted out before sprinting away. I looked back up at Bianca, who still seemed rattled by the incident.

“Are you going to be alright?” I asked.

She was still staring at the drops of greenish liquid on the ground. “I-I’m fine. J-Just leave me alone, OK?” she stammered out. For some reason, the injury had rattled her even worse than Gary, but I didn’t want to push the issue.

“Alright, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then,” I said uneasily. I turned around and started for home, motioning for Marine to follow.

In the same hospital room, the same people stood, watching over a crying baby. "So, this is it. My third greatest project, still in my possession," the man whispered to himself.

"No."

The man looked up, startled by the woman's reply and glare. "He's not your project anymore. He's my son. That is all he is from now on, and all he needs to be." Her face took on a lighter tone, "And wouldn't he at least be our project or your greatest project?"

The building itself had a concrete exterior with as little to mark it as possible. All there was to signify the purpose of the building was a simple, wooden sign over the door that read “Pallet Blade Dojo: School of Fencing.” We honestly didn’t want every little kid in town coming over to try to stab something with a sword, so we didn’t make any efforts to advertise. If you cared enough about it, you would probably know someone who would tell you about the place.

That part made me laugh. I could easily picture little kids asking "Mommy, can I learn fencing?" much to their parents horror.

It will be interesting to see how fencing plays into the story. I'm guessing Elisha will show off his skills somewhere down the road.

Marine ran on ahead of me, occasionally trying to run on two legs, but frequently tripping and falling back down to two.

I think you meant four right there. :P

There were large tears and scrapes on them from trying to hold the spinning Pokémon; some leaking a strange green substance that I suspected was blood. While it probably wouldn’t be fatal, it definitely was painful and would probably require serious medical attention quickly.

Good description right there. It sounds like we are going to have a Nuzlocke fic on our hands. I sure hope Elisha, Bianca and Gary are ready for this.

Though I have to agree with Gary and Eli- Whatever made Bianca so happy, it scares me. 0__o

Also...

Marine ran on ahead of me, occasionally trying to run on two legs, but frequently tripping and falling back down to two.

*Eyebrow raise*

Last edited by Kindrindra; 10th July 2011 at 8:37 AM.

"Open your mouth too wide, and your ears close."

Do you wish you could do things like in the anime?
Do you wish you could dodge behind a rock to avoid an attack?
Do you wish that you could use the arena to stop your opponents cold?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, the Pokemon Anime Style Battling League could be for you!

That part made me laugh. I could easily picture little kids asking "Mommy, can I learn fencing?" much to their parents horror.Yeah, just from past experience with dealing with new scouts in my boy scout troop, I quickly realized that situation would probably appear.
It will be interesting to see how fencing plays into the story. I'm guessing Elisha will show off his skills somewhere down the road.

Eventually. There won't be many sequences of human vs human/human v Pokemon, but they will appear.

I think you meant four right there. :P

A number of people that does not number 2 or 4 have caught that mistake now. On the other hand, only three typos in 8,000 words!

Good description right there. It sounds like we are going to have a Nuzlocke fic on our hands. I sure hope Elisha, Bianca and Gary are ready for this. Q: Is it possible to be ready for this. And yay, Nuzlocke fics are always fun.

Nice chapter, keep up the great work.

Thanks for the reply! I will get to fixing grammar stuff later... when I stop being so la- busy.

Originally Posted by Kindrindra

Very nice.

Though I have to agree with Gary and Eli- Whatever made Bianca so happy, it scares me. 0__oThat will be explained in a few chapters. Until then, be afraid. Be very afraid.
Also...

*Eyebrow raise* I swear I might keep that to see how many people can point that out.

Anyways, my time to write/review will be very limited in the coming weeks due to being in the middle of nowhere on staff at a boy scout camp. My goal is to have the next two chapters done and posted by the 25th, but until then don't expect any updates.

The more i see of this fic the more i like it. It seems to be a journey fic right now somehow following the storyline but it's strongly hinted something more will happen.

The battle was also well done I dont normally like nuzlocke fics but if it's pulled of well it should be good.

The only critisicm I can give is once again descripting the characters. There was more description with Eli's mom than before but please add more in later chapters it really helps the reader imagening the character and the story flows more well that way.

I'm really liking this fic so far. Your descriptions arent too long that they disrupt the flow of the story, but they don't skimp either. Your narration is also excellent, and though I'm not usually a fan of nuzlocke five I'm very interested in seeing where this is going. The only real criticism I have is that at some points your dialogue feels a little off, but its not a big complaint in any way shape or form. Keep up the good work, and be sure to put me on the PM list

The more i see of this fic the more i like it. It seems to be a journey fic right now somehow following the storyline but it's strongly hinted something more will happen.Am I actually giving hints or is it just the sig?
The battle was also well done I dont normally like nuzlocke fics but if it's pulled of well it should be good.If you normally like Nuzlocke fics, you've got a problem. They tend to be exact renditions of the game (but darker) and almost entirely written by new-ish writers
The only critisicm I can give is once again descripting the characters. There was more description with Eli's mom than before but please add more in later chapters it really helps the reader imagening the character and the story flows more well that way.Yeah, I normally don't go heavy on the principle that it feels so unnatural when I'm writing it, but I'll add more in for the few major characters I have left to introduce. And I will give proper description to other characters in the somewhat uneventful Chapter Two.
Somehow i feel the need to point out the typo about Squirtles legs.I swear if I ever write a sequel/prequel/companion one shot the title will be "falling back to two." That said, thanks for reading and reviewing.

Originally Posted by Gallyrat

I'm really liking this fic so far. Your descriptions arent too long that they disrupt the flow of the story, but they don't skimp either. Yay, one person thinks I got the balance right!
Your narration is also excellent, and though I'm not usually a fan of nuzlocke five I'm very interested in seeing where this is going. See my comment on Nuzlocke fics in the above reply. Narraration is something that I really want/need to work on, so there will be a special challenge with that starting next chapter. I wasn't aware that I was actually doing that particularly well, so thanks!
The only real criticism I have is that at some points your dialogue feels a little off, but its not a big complaint in any way shape or form. Dialogue is something I have never, and probably will never, be able to master. I'll try to make it more in-character (and more frequent) once I don't have to cover 5 plot points a chapter.
Keep up the good work, and be sure to put me on the PM list Thanks, and done.

Well, I did fail to get the update done before I go to camp for 11 days. Well, I could post something, but it's not nearly as long as it should be and I want to go back through it and rewrite some scenes after the recent reviews. Now that I'm rewriting stuff anyways, now would be a great time to give constructive criticism or advice.

This could be considered a review exchange review. However, I was going to do this anyways, so you can decided whether you want it to be one or not.Fics: See sigType of review wanted: I want to know what it is exactly that hurts my fic. Do your worst.

Eh. A review's a review, and who am I to reject someone willing to throw their story to the wolves for training?

This story is very well written. Descriptions are varied, the spelling's perfect and you're avoiding all the typical traps fanfiction writers usually fall into. If this was an essay, you'd get an A.

Sadly, it isn't. Reading about this guy I care nothing about training and chatting casually with some friends is a really bad way to start a story. As an introduction it's OK, but this streak of bland characters and dull events continues for way longer than anyone not chained down is going to read.

Personally I'd catch the reader by surprise right away... Like, say, make the virtual simulator malfunction so that Kyogre suddenly appears, followed by fifty Caterpie that he tries to defeat. Just... Anything interesting!

The descriptions are very elaborate. In a story where interesting events are few and far between, this actually hurts you more than it helps. Cut them down, or fill the story out with more interesting things to describe.

Loved the reference to the intro for Red, though. I personally had Blue, but... Yeah, that Jigglypuff stood no chance.

So, what can I say? Your writing skills are peerless, combine them with a good manuscript and it'll be great!

This story is very well written. Descriptions are varied, the spelling's perfect and you're avoiding all the typical traps fanfiction writers usually fall into. If this was an essay, you'd get an A.

Sadly, it isn't. Reading about this guy I care nothing about training and chatting casually with some friends is a really bad way to start a story. As an introduction it's OK, but this streak of bland characters and dull events continues for way longer than anyone not chained down is going to read.

Personally I'd catch the reader by surprise right away... Like, say, make the virtual simulator malfunction so that Kyogre suddenly appears, followed by fifty Caterpie that he tries to defeat. Just... Anything interesting!

The descriptions are very elaborate. In a story where interesting events are few and far between, this actually hurts you more than it helps. Cut them down, or fill the story out with more interesting things to describe.

Loved the reference to the intro for Red, though. I personally had Blue, but... Yeah, that Jigglypuff stood no chance.

So, what can I say? Your writing skills are peerless, combine them with a good manuscript and it'll be great!

System malfunction... *grins evilly*

Oh, I think I can edit the opening a bit. Now I just need to get back to society and a computer...

Regardless, thank you so much. I'd gotten some comments on FF.net loosely along those lines, but I couldn't tell what the heck they actually wanted me to do or specifically, what the problem was. Now that I know that, I think I can add something in to the first chapter and prologue. The next two chapters will be decently boring by nature (conventional start of a journey). And then the fun begins. So, thanks for the point. I'll work on that and post when I've added the scene(s?) and killing some of the lab/system description, as neither actually matter outside of their chapter.

This is a review exchange review

This is a review exchange review.Fics: "Under the Same Sky", a PG-15 Chaptered Story (Currently at Three Chapters, and 20,000-ish words).

Summary: A nameless teenager is heralded as the Champion of the Unova League. However, he's not ready to bear that cross. In order to deal with his inner demons, he absconds to Undella Town - and meets a certain blonde Sinnoh Champion.

Review Wanted: A review similar to mine. I provided quote-by-quote analysis for each chapter. If you don't want to do quote-by-quote, I'd also be happy with general comments separately, for each chapter. Elements I'd also like you to perhaps focus on are description, characterisation, and my dialogue.

Hope that my review is satisfactory and would help you improve. =)

Prologue:

This was it. The final battle. It was, by no means, an easy match, with a powerful opponent backed by every piece of intelligence in the system matched upon my relatively weak Pokémon. In reality, that had nothing to do with it. I had a few tricks up my sleeve that gave him absolutely no chance. He had pressure. A lot of pressure. Just about everyone I had ever met was watching, and most of them expected me to fail. I knew I wouldn’t, but at the same time I wasn’t exactly sure. There was no one in the room, yet everyone was. It wasn’t just a Gengar that I was facing. It was a lot more.

-Commas required for dependent clause.
-Confusing sentences, such as the highlighted one. I know that you are trying to be enigmatic, but self-contradictory sentences like that seem to have no purpose. There are ways of evoking suspense/mystery, whilst having clear, understandable prose.

Nidorino leapt at his opponent, the air around his claw distorting into a cryptic grey aura. Gengar narrowed his eyes, the system processing everything about the move. Right as the claw was about to connect, it seemed to register what to do, and immediately dodged to the side. “Again!” Nidorino hit the ground and pounced in the other direction, sending the ghost-type flying back. [Suggested Spacing]
Unfortunately, he was off the ground in a second and it was obvious he hadn’t been badly harmed. Just as expected. No one ever won their last battle by sheer force. Heck, the system probably hadn’t let the attack do any damage. [Suggested Spacing]
“Good, let’s try a different tactic. Use-“ He wasn’t listening. Nidorino was staring into Gengar’s eyes, oblivious to anything I was saying. For all practical purposes, the poison-type was dead to the world. I grimaced, realizing exactly what was happening. Every final opponent had some sort of trick. For Machamp, it was the constant confusion from its Dynamic Punch attack. For Clefable it was charming the opponent into not fighting. Charizard abused the sun. I had been almost certain that Gengar was going to try to shut down Nidorino by binding it with Psychic. Apparently it was Hypnosis in this battle. Unexpected, but definitely possible to overcome with just a little thought. Not that I had the time.

-Choppy action sequence. Your description is solid, but your execution could be tightened. The best way to do that is to use less long sentences and more fragments. Also, space out the sequences. The original “blob” paragraph was a swift way of killing an action-junkie erection; readers will get lost in the swathes of text and daze a little. I suggested some spacing to divide that paragraph, but ultimately you have the final curtain call.

Gengar’s eyes glowed again as the system made its decision. This time, they were a pinkish glow, the color of a psychic aura. Brilliant. “Nidorino, sucker punch now!” Nidorino rushed forwards, slamming into Gengar’s gut and pushing him back before the attack could be completed. Everything was going according to plan now. “Double Kick.” I made sure the command was clear enough so that it could not be misinterpreted. The system did have some override procedures where it would stop listening to anyone controlling it. However, for final tests the override could be overridden again if it was certain the commander intended it. And I was fairly certain that every override feature in the system was going to be alerted to a fighting attack used on a ghost. Nidorino hesitated, the system racing to figure out what to do. And then he jumped. Gengar looked up, the system desperately trying to find anything that it could as to why this would ever be used. At the last moment, Gengar faded a little, becoming intangible for any non-elemental attack. As Nidorino fell through the ghostly outline, I smiled, not even noticing the cameras as I gave the final command of the battle, “Shadow Claw, now!” My opponent was shredded into ghostly essence from the inside out just before the world began to dissolve.

-Sucker Punch should be capitalized, since it’s a Move.
-Again, the long paragraph drags the action sequence. Think of paragraphs and sentences as a camera; when you want to slow down a scene, you focus on the details. The camera zooms in on the atmospheric details and stops to notice all the little intricacies. Sentences become longer with the lengthening descriptions. When you want to fast-forward a scene, you forgo the details; the camera becomes “bumpy” or “blurry” as its lens only stops to glimpse at the scenery for a mere second, before moving on. Sentences and paragraphs become shorter, with the terser descriptions.

Solution? Space out those paragraphs. Divide them. Food for thought.

She glanced back up, and stared at me for a moment as if I’d asked her the stupidest question she’d ever heard. “Well, it’s the best option. Psychic is great for damage, but can be stalled by substitute and dark auras. That, and no final test ever plays that aggressively. Burn is a nice stalling tactic, but Nidorino knows quite a few special attacks as well, so it would be too easy to avoid. Perish Song leads to a tie, which is simply settled by a redo. Hypnosis, on the other hand, has only one good way around it, is unlikely to be predicted by a rookie such as yourself, and shuts down the opponent to later by blasted away by hexes. It’s simple really.” With that, she turned up her iPod to full volume, blocking out the conversation completely. Squirtle hopped back on my lap, and I stroked his shell for the next few hours while waiting for the tests to conclude.

-Substitute and Dark Aura should be capitalized.

“Glad to see you passed,” the girl beside me mumbled. I looked over at her, to see that she had taken her headphones out and had her Charmander on her lap. She was the second of the three junior aides at the lab, and worked in the fire-type section with her Charmander. We’d had our share of disagreements, but didn’t really dislike each other. Well, I’m not actually sure what she thought about me. We talked sometimes, and it didn’t always break down into fights, but it did often enough. I just liked to imagine we were on better terms to keep her older brother –my supervisor- happy.

“Hello, Bianca. See you cleared your exam.” I kept it short, and neutral. I’ve never known exactly what to say around her to create a conversation that wasn’t likely to break down, and had learned several times over that sarcasm and teasing should be reserved for Gary.

-Bianca. Ah, what a stimulating name in the Pokemon Fandom. In the preceding years, that name was thrown around when discussing Altoshipping and Latias. Now, the name is tossed around in reverence to the beauty of B/W. =)
-Is this Bianca one of the canon characters, or is she a mere tribute? Either way, my fanboy senses are tingling.

Gary’s face sunk a little, “Oh, right.” He thought for a moment, and then replied “So, how about we do it at eight or so?”

-Comma splice. I would use a period instead.
-You use the transition “Then” eight times in this chapter only. It’s been overused. Perhaps, the use of other transitions, such as “After” or “Proceeding”, would be suitable alternatives. At any rate, beware of overusing any single word; I always like to use Ctrl+F to check my “danger” words (e.g. vague, gaze, stare, and smile). You could do the same.
-Missing punctuation. A period or even a comma might suffice.

Overall, the Prologue has room for improvement. The writing drags quite a bit, because of those enormous paragraphs. Moreover, the length of your sentences does not vary as often as would be optimal. These factors can make the prose seem monotonous to precursory glances, which is all some readers would give you. I would make a greater effort to separate some of those sections into more readable chunks. It’s too hard; use the Space Bar more often.

Judging from your summary, the premise itself appears decent. Political intrigue fits into the Pokemon World, when you consider the pseudo-political rhetoric spouted by Team Magma/Aqua and Team Plasma. You win some points there.

Chapter One:

I smiled a little, “Well, I have two reasons.” Gary nodded to signify I could go on, “The first is that the Professor will probably take a while to get out of the school and back to his lab. Wasting time sitting around isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. The second is that while wasting my time, sitting around watching you get on Bianca’s nerves can be entertaining, I don’t particularly want to deal with it today.”

I smiled. Leave it to Gary to joke about felonies. “That too,” I laughed. We walked on in silence, not talking for the mile-long trip. Talking slows me down, and I really didn’t want to be late to the meeting. Normally being late does nothing to improve the mood of a meeting. In Gary’s case, he was just trying to keep up. It’s not that he’s out of shape –he’s not- it’s just that I walk “fast enough to attract all the female Rapidash in Kanto,” as Gary put it. I just see no point in wasting time if I don’t have to. Today I’d already spent a few hours waiting for the tests to get done. I didn’t want to add anything more. [SPACE]
When we got to the dojo, Gary paused to catch his breath while I went ahead towards the doors. The building itself had a concrete exterior with as little to mark it as possible. All there was to signify the purpose of the building was a simple, wooden sign over the door that read “Pallet Blade Dojo: School of Fencing.” We honestly didn’t want every little kid in town coming over to try to stab something with a sword, so we didn’t make any efforts to advertise. If you cared enough about it, you would probably know someone who would tell you about the place.

-Self-evident. You forgot to press the ENTER key one more time. No biggie. =)

The Professor glanced up from the report on his desk, and waved his hand to tell us to sit down, which we did. The Professor very rarely called us to his office for a meeting, and when he did it was generally important. He sat staring at his report for another minute or so, and then typed something into his computer, before he finally turned back to us, and folded his hands in front of him to signify his attention was on us.

-Long sentence. You could easily correct it by creating a new sentence after “to sit down”.
-Missing comma for the dependent clause.

At age 35, my mom was fairly young to have a fifteen-year-old child, but this wasn’t ever discussed. In fact, I’m still not sure of many of the details concerning my birth at all, aside from the accident. That aside, she always wore the same outfit almost every day; a white shirt that doubled as a lab coat and a pair of dark jeans. There wasn’t much need to be formal at the lab. Other than that, the only thing really worth mentioning would be the eyes. They were silver, and almost seemed to shine abnormally bright in the moonlight. She brushed her black hair over her shoulder shortly after opening the door, and let Marine and I in. Marine immediately rushed forwards, wanting to greet some of my mom’s Pokémon he’d gotten to know from his occasional trips home with me. I’m not entirely sure if he realized it yet, but this was his home now, too.

-Always use words instead of numbers, especially if the number concerned is below one hundred. This mistake is a little odd, since you did the right thing for the proceeding independent clause. O.o;; Perhaps you were a little tired when you were typing?
-Also, “fifteen year-old”. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to grammar, but I’m pretty sure that the concerned phrase doesn’t involve two consecutive hyphens.

As Squirtle began to eagerly talk with Lucario, who seemed much less in the conversation than the water-type, my mom and I sat down at the table. There was some food set out that we ate, but forgive me if I can’t exactly remember what after however long it’s been. Regardless, I remember the conversation fairly well.

“Good job on the exam,” my mom began.

“Thanks, but it wasn’t too-“

…

“Yeah, I didn’t really see the Hypnosis and Dream Eater coming,” I confessed. “Not to mention the crowds.”

My mother nodded, understanding exactly what I was referring to. “Well, it’s been a while since I was a novice trainer, but I don’t think I was thrilled the first time I battled in front of an audience. I still get a little nervous whenever I speak to a crowd. I think I can safely say that no one enjoys the crowds. In fact, some of the greatest men and women in the world will do everything they can to avoid public appearances. Trust me; stage fright is nothing to be ashamed of.”

…

I wanted to talk to my mom about so many things, but unfortunately time was running out. Gary had wanted to meet me at eight, and it was already seven-thirty. It took me about thirty minutes to get where he would be waiting, so I had to leave soon. When I finally got the food cleared off of my plate, I stood up and thanked my mom for dinner. When she asked where I was going, I told her Gary and I wanted to meet up. She hesitated before approving as if there was something more she wanted to say, but eventually let me walk out the door, Squirtle in tow.

-In many YA books, the First Person Narrator tends to refer to their mother as “Mother”, “Mom”, “Mum”, and any permutation thereof. Not “my mom”, at least if they’re not stilted and/or excessively formal. Unless you’re trying to make a point of the MC’s personality, try to mix it up with a few “Moms”. The excessive possessive pronouns can bog down the narrative flow.

It was still chilly in the evenings. May isn’t exactly summer yet in the Pallet area, and temperatures did tend to drop as the sun went down.

-I would capitalize “Summer”.

I was a bit more worried. Pokémon battling was a dangerous sport to begin with, and doing it without a ref just increased the risks, I wanted to point that out, but didn’t see a point in doing it. “Yeah, let’s-“

-Cheers for using the accent in Pokémon, unlike what some people do. Those little attentions to detail are what make a good fic good. =D

She was still staring at the drops of greenish liquid on the ground. “I-I’m fine. J-just leave me alone, OK?” she stammered out. For some reason, the injury had rattled her even worse than Gary, but I didn’t want to push the issue.

-Capitalize the second ‘j’.
-Bianca’s interplay with Gary seems rather combative, doesn’t it? It certainly adds drama to the story, which creates conflict. Which tends to be a plus in my book. Beware that making a character overly antagonistic to the point of being unpleasant is possible, though.

Generally, your writing could be improved through more judicious pruning. Don’t be afraid to cut down those sentences! Paragraphs don’t have to be large, and sentences don’t have to be long in order to sound “impressive”. Shorter, choppier prose isn’t always a sign of incompetent writing. Look at some of the better specialists in Thrillers: they will use fragments and five word sentences to convey their scenes. I’ll quote one of my favourite authors for clarification: “In writing, you must kill your darlings”, by William Faulkner.

I still find your premise interesting; a Political!League is always one of the better Indigo Leagues which one can depict. However, the execution can be improved. Don’t give up hope, though. Continue writing, and your dreams can come true. Keep on dreaming, and everything will turn out for the best.

Under the Same Sky - PG-15||Completed

Memorandum to UtSS:"A Deathless Prelude".FF.net Profile//Quote-of-the-month: “History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever.”

This is a review exchange review.Fics: "Under the Same Sky", a PG-15 Chaptered Story (Currently at Three Chapters, and 20,000-ish words).

Summary: A nameless teenager is heralded as the Champion of the Unova League. However, he's not ready to bear that cross. In order to deal with his inner demons, he absconds to Undella Town - and meets a certain blonde Sinnoh Champion.

Review Wanted: A review similar to mine. I provided quote-by-quote analysis for each chapter. If you don't want to do quote-by-quote, I'd also be happy with general comments separately, for each chapter. Elements I'd also like you to perhaps focus on are description, characterisation, and my dialogue.

Hope that my review is satisfactory and would help you improve. =)

First off, my only contact with the outside world is a cell phone now. I'll try to do quote by quote in my own way, but it'll be choppy.

Prologue

Grammar:

Well, once again I'm on a phone. I'll try to fix some of it today, some will take a while. I want to thank you a lot for spending so much time going through this. And yes, my grammar skills and understanding of how to properly work English are somewhat limited compared to others here. I hope that will improve with time.

Bianca. Ah, what a stimulating name in the Pokemon Fandom. In the preceding years, that name was thrown around when discussing Altoshipping and Latias. Now, the name is tossed around in reverence to the beauty of B/W. =)
-Is this Bianca one of the canon characters, or is she a mere tribute? Either way, my fanboy senses are tingling.

To be honest, I have yet to play B/W, and forgot about the Altoshipping one. Truthfully, after going through several names I wound up with that as the best one. I should probably pay more attention to cannon to avoid things like that.

-Comma splice. I would use a period instead.
-You use the transition “Then” eight times in this chapter only. It’s been overused. Perhaps, the use of other transitions, such as “After” or “Proceeding”, would be suitable alternatives. At any rate, beware of overusing any single word; I always like to use Ctrl+F to check my “danger” words (e.g. vague, gaze, stare, and smile). You could do the same.
-Missing punctuation. A period or even a comma might suffice.

Thank you so much for that piece of advice. It will definately be incorporated. But, that will continue to be one of Eli's favorite transitions as narrator. For other narrators, others will be more frequent.

Overall, the Prologue has room for improvement. The writing drags quite a bit, because of those enormous paragraphs. Moreover, the length of your sentences does not vary as often as would be optimal. These factors can make the prose seem monotonous to precursory glances, which is all some readers would give you. I would make a greater effort to separate some of those sections into more readable chunks. It’s too hard; use the Space Bar more often.I will definately do that. Combined with ShadedSkies' advice, a few things will be reworked to make it better. And varying sentances will forever be a problem, and as such I should certainly pay more attention to it in the future,,
Judging from your summary, the premise itself appears decent. Political intrigue fits into the Pokemon World, when you consider the pseudo-political rhetoric spouted by Team Magma/Aqua and Team Plasma. You win some points there.That's how the story starts it gets a little less involved with politics at parts, and more so in others. It really varies, but thanks for the encouragement.Chapter One:

Despite their awesome prowess, Trainers cannot “smile” words. Substitute the comma for a period.laughed at that

-Self-evident. You forgot to press the ENTER key one more time. No biggie. =)Riiight, I meant to do that.

-Long sentence. You could easily correct it by creating a new sentence after “to sit down”.
-Missing comma for the dependent clause.

Alright

-Always use words instead of numbers, especially if the number concerned is below one hundred. This mistake is a little odd, since you did the right thing for the proceeding independent clause. O.o;; Perhaps you were a little tired when you were typing?
-Also, “fifteen year-old”. I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to grammar, but I’m pretty sure that the concerned phrase doesn’t involve two consecutive hyphens.

I normally catch that stuff, not quite tired, but more of bored. I should've identified the chapter as somewhat boring. Need to fix that...

-In many YA books, the First Person Narrator tends to refer to their mother as “Mother”, “Mom”, “Mum”, and any permutation thereof. Not “my mom”, at least if they’re not stilted and/or excessively formal. Unless you’re trying to make a point of the MC’s personality, try to mix it up with a few “Moms”. The excessive possessive pronouns can bog down the narrative flow.I need to decide if that would be his personality. Then I'll fix it or leave it.

-Cheers for using the accent in Pokémon, unlike what some people do. Those little attentions to detail are what make a good fic good. =D

My computer auto-corrects that stuff after I went through and messed with auto-correct.

-Capitalize the second ‘j’.
-Bianca’s interplay with Gary seems rather combative, doesn’t it? It certainly adds drama to the story, which creates conflict. Which tends to be a plus in my book. Beware that making a character overly antagonistic to the point of being unpleasant is possible, though.She gets less unpleasant later. She just really hates two things. One of which would be Gary, and the other she will be leaving behind in upcoming chapters.
Generally, your writing could be improved through more judicious pruning. Don’t be afraid to cut down those sentences! Paragraphs don’t have to be large, and sentences don’t have to be long in order to sound “impressive”. Shorter, choppier prose isn’t always a sign of incompetent writing. Look at some of the better specialists in Thrillers: they will use fragments and five word sentences to convey their scenes. I’ll quote one of my favourite authors for clarification: “In writing, you must kill your darlings”, by William Faulkner.

I still find your premise interesting; a Political!League is always one of the better Indigo Leagues which one can depict. However, the execution can be improved. Don’t give up hope, though. Continue writing, and your dreams can come true. Keep on dreaming, and everything will turn out for the best.Thank you for the advice as to my second core problem. I can identify them for others, but never myself. Now with your advice and ShadedSkies advice I will heavily edit the last two chapters and proceed with an idea of my weak points for the following. Thank you!

First off, that was the best review I have ever received, and I can only try to match it. Second off, I've never had my work seriously analyzed in that way. I'm definately shocked at how far I have to go, but I'm motivated now that I know where I have a problem. Anyways, the core concept will take a while to get to the forefront, but I've decided to speed it up and bring in that plotline next chapter... which will take about two weeks to get out now that I get to do so many revisions. Anyways, please be understanding if my review style isn't as good as you might've hoped and if it will take a while to get through 20K words on a phone and do quote by quote reviewing. I should have it done by the end of the week though, but my free time at the moment is somewhat limited. Anyways, onto your fic, and thanks for the review.

EDIT: I think Faulkner was probably reffering more to his characters, but I get the point.

First off, that was the best review I have ever received, and I can only try to match it. Second off, I've never had my work seriously analyzed in that way. I'm definately shocked at how far I have to go, but I'm motivated now that I know where I have a problem. Anyways, the core concept will take a while to get to the forefront, but I've decided to speed it up and bring in that plotline next chapter... which will take about two weeks to get out now that I get to do so many revisions. Anyways, please be understanding if my review style isn't as good as you might've hoped and if it will take a while to get through 20K words on a phone and do quote by quote reviewing. I should have it done by the end of the week though, but my free time at the moment is somewhat limited. Anyways, onto your fic, and thanks for the review.

Well, I feel honoured that my review was the best one you've received. I still think that I don't quite hold a torch to the reviewing skills of Psychic and Sike Saner, but I appreciate the compliment. The sad truth is that some people simply don't choose to review, even after reading and perhaps enjoying the story. We're all rather lazy at times, which is why the Review Exchange is a good idea, imo. It provides an incentive to review. xD

I'm glad that you could receive my criticism in a positive way! Some people can't take critique in any way except negative; I'm happy that you could use it as a means to improve. Just don't give up. I remember when I was a younger writer, I felt really down over the quality of my writing. Perhaps I was too self-deprecating, but I trashed my own writing over and over again, criticising my own self too much. We are our worst critics, I think. Writing is a hard slog, but if you have a good attitude and a decent idea, things are possible.

Writing isn't a "talent", imo; it's a skill that comes from working hard.

And you don't need to do quote-by-quote if you're too busy. Like I said, I'd also be fine with just general comments separately, for each chapter. =)

Cheers, and I hope that the Review Exchange helped you out.

Under the Same Sky - PG-15||Completed

Memorandum to UtSS:"A Deathless Prelude".FF.net Profile//Quote-of-the-month: “History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever.”

Well, I feel honoured that my review was the best one you've received. I still think that I don't quite hold a torch to the reviewing skills of Psychic and Sike Saner, but I appreciate the compliment.

It is very rare that I get any experienced writer to comment on what I write. I'm glad that the review exchange can possibly help with that.

Originally Posted by Draco Malfoy

I'm glad that you could receive my criticism in a positive way! Some people can't take critique in any way except negative; I'm happy that you could use it as a means to improve. Just don't give up. I remember when I was a younger writer, I felt really down over the quality of my writing. Perhaps I was too self-deprecating, but I trashed my own writing over and over again, criticising my own self too much. We are our worst critics, I think. Writing is a hard slog, but if you have a good attitude and a decent idea, things are possible.

I do that all of the time if I get too critical, so I generally try to avoid it. Decent idea I (hopefully) have. Good attitude is being worked on. Now to see if I have the experience and work ethic to get the idea of the ground

Originally Posted by Draco Malfoy

Writing isn't a "talent", imo; it's a skill that comes from working hard.

And you don't need to do quote-by-quote if you're too busy. Like I said, I'd also be fine with just general comments separately, for each chapter. =)

Cheers, and I hope that the Review Exchange helped you out.

Yeah, I'm sure that I'll get better with time and practice. And reviews. I didn't comment too much on why I take criticism better than most, but I've realized that other people criticizing with specifics is a much better ending to a story than myself hating it for reasons that I can't pin down and disregarding it. And the Review Exchange is a brilliant concept. Also, how could I not give an attempt at an in-depth review after that thing. Edited in the last review response, but the Faulkner quote is likely reffering to killing off characters, but same thing.

Regardless, I am done editing the above stories based on the advice recieved from ShadedSkies and Draco Malfoy. Nothing major got added except for changes in flow, except for one sequence. A brief scene was added after the exam's conclusion, but it will be covered in more detail later anyways. Now, I feel like I have to start over with Chapter Two, but I should have it done for next Monday. With that, I'm out.

First off, thank you for two pages. Following that up, could you be more specific? I don't really even know if you read it by that post. As for R-rating, it's pre-emptive at this point. It gets bad in four chapters. Until then, it barely deserves PG-13.

Sorry about the wait guys. Camping blocked my time to work on this, as did preperations for an RP on another site. But that's besides the point. I'm back now. Chapter rating content: No violence, vague reference to an injury, no blood or gore, some swearing at the end.

Chapter Two: Grayscale Revolution

Gary

He was naturally curious. That saved him multiple times, but that all comes later. For now, it only matters concerning her. He and his friend were playing on the playground when the teacher came out with a small girl, shorter than both of them, with black hair and gray eyes. She looked around the playground with a nervous look, trying to find something familiar or comforting. The teacher and her eventually began to argue, but he couldn't hear what it was about. The teacher appeared to reassure her, and went back inside, leaving the girl behind, with the same uncertain expression as before. He leapt to the ground and turned to his friend, "Come on," he shouted and then ran towards her. The friend hesitated, but followed behind anyways.

The girl looked them over for almost a full minute before speaking in a barely audible voice, "Bianca."

"Well, hi."

The girl began to stare at her shoes, finding the situation increasing awkward. "Where are you from?" Gary continued.

She replied in the same quiet voice, "Viridian."

"Cool, I've been to Viridian before. Why'd you move here?" The boy kept going on, never fully aware that he might be prying a bit too hard unintentionally.

The same quiet voice after a long pause. "...none of your buisiness."

"...Alrighty then, do you want to come play with Eli and I?"

"...I would rather not."

The boy grunted, annoyed by this girl who clearly lacked a sense of fun. "Fine Mrs. Dreary, stand hear alone. We'll be off playing."

The boy walked away without looking back, while the friend stayed for a few moments longer, and almost looked sad when he followed Gary.

After watching them for a few minutes, the girl walked towards the two boys.

Yeah, so I wasn’t off to a great start. I’d almost killed my first Pokémon on the first night of owning it because of a rookie mistake. I was probably never going to hear the end of that one. Not to mention it was earlier than six o’clock and I had been awake for over an hour. I couldn’t remember the last time I could say that. On a more positive note, I’d gotten off to a great start with nutritious Combee Crunch, complete with all the needed vitamins and minerals to get you going in the day. As I lumbered out towards the agreed meeting place, my pack weighing down on my back. I generally wanted to just go back to sleep. I started to doubt the cereal’s effectiveness. Never trust high TV salesmen.

Then again, a lot of that was my fault anyways. However I justified it, that battle was a bad idea. There would’ve been plenty of time to do it in Viridian, but I had to rush into it with absolutely no training. And did I mention it was the night before I had to wake up at four-thirty in the morning. What could’ve possibly gone wrong with that idea? On a lighter note, Ivy wasn’t hurt too badly. He could use his vines again within a few days if everything went well. It was still almost a week without being able to do anything but Tackle, but that would be alright. I could catch another Pokémon pretty quickly, and there wasn’t really a rush to train up now. Honestly, I didn’t even have a reason to get stronger.

That bothered me a little. Gramps told me that some time ago, there used to be an open challenge across the nations. Trainers would challenge the leaders of the various cities in attempts to gain a symbol signifying their victory. If they could gain enough symbols, they could challenge the Pokémon League itself, and possibly become the next champion. And then came Ariel Day. About fifty years ago, a rogue trainer had captured the storm spirits of the land –a forbidden and illegal act. He proceeded to crush the local leaders. He made it all the way to the league before the champion defeated him in a battle, and forced him to release the storm gods. After that, the League had decided that rogue trainers wandering around and seeking to further their power was simply too much of a security risk. The Champion was still the strongest trainer in the region; but now that was determined by battles between the highest ranking generals in Kanto and Johto whenever the Champion decided to step down. The last time that happened was shortly before I was born. Champion Brendan stepped down and Lance had won the battle. He was still Champion when I left Pallet.

Tangent aside, there was no reason to train anymore. Strength was unneeded, advancement was nearly impossible, and training opportunities were scarce. It was actually kind of depressing, considering that Gramps had been one of the best trainers alive back in his day. It supposedly ran in the blood. Yeah, so nice to know that even my blood is out to ruin my life.

Going back to the actual story, it was a pleasant morning. Provided you’re a ghost type, or course. It was still mostly dark outside, and the sun hadn’t warmed up the day yet. A light fog covered the ground, slightly obscuring vision and making it even drearier outside. All that was missing from the wonderful scene was rain. Thankfully, it was a rather short walk from my house to the lab. Eli could’ve probably run it –sorry, “walked” it- in under fifteen minutes. Still, I wasn’t exactly in a “walk quickly mood.” It wasn’t like I was very eager for the journey either. As far as I was concerned, it would just be baby-sitting Bianca and Eli as they ran around catching every useless Pokémon in sight like kids in a candy shop. I would probably just catch something to show to Gramps and then wait to fill in my team until I could get my hands on something decent.

About twenty-five minutes or so after I left my house, I got to the doors of the lab. Bianca and Eli were already waiting for me, as expected. Eli was wearing his typical grey jacket and white baseball cap, with a tan backpack carrying his supplies. I noticed it was larger than mine, which irritated me slightly. Being older and taller, I was always slightly annoyed when he showed off how much stronger he was. But I would always have him in the looks department, so I was never too annoyed. Miss Dreary was there as well, generally adding to the grey dreariness of the morning. Seriously, she has some sort of a refusal to wear anything involving bright colors. She probably even washed her jeans several times before she would wear them, just to prevent any sort of vibrant color from being on her person. Add in her grey tennis shoes, brown coat, and grey eyes and you get an outfit as dull as her personality.

The strange part was, it actually looked like Eli and Bianca had been talking about something before I walked up, and they weren’t angry at each other. I considered pointing it out, but decided against it. Nothing was worth arguing at this time in the morning with a long hike to go. I trudged up beside Eli, grunting out something that could be interpreted as everything from “Hey, how’s it going?” to “I like Pancakes,” and “The sky is falling.” Eli apparently understood it as “Let’s go!”

“Alright guys are you ready?” he asked eagerly. However he could be that awake before six was completely beyond me.

“Wait a minute,” I objected. “I have some extra weight I need to shove onto you guys.” I dropped my pack down with a “thud,” not really caring if I broke anything. I unzipped one of the pouches, and pulled out ten Pokéballs. I tossed five to each of them and explained, “A gift from Gramps.”

With that, they talked a little about something (How the heck would I remember what? It was six in the morning.) and put the Pokémon balls on their belt. After that, they set off towards the exit of town, not even asking if I was ready. They probably knew what the answer would be.

It didn’t take us long to get out of Pallet. Bianca quickly fell into silence after we departed, ending her brief period of social activity. At least some things were still working normally in the world. Eli was walking ahead of the group alone; probably bored with the pace we were going. That left me back with Bianca, who thankfully wasn’t interested in talking. I don’t mind teasing her, but if had to deal with her for the next few days I did not want to start with a knife in my chest. That could’ve make things a bit more difficult.

When we got close to the Pallet Town limits, Eli was waiting for us at the sign. Thankfully, by this point the sun had decided to wake up and do some work for the day. Eli also slowed down to match the pace at the back of the group for once. Apparently he’d finally realized that I had the form we needed to pick up the package, so it was kind of useless to run ahead. It’s so nice to have control over the situation.

As we walked, a debate of sorts arose between Bianca and Eli. I chose not to get involved for reasons stated earlier. That and I didn’t really care. They were talking about how much time it would take them to get to Viridian, how much time they could spare to look for Pokémon , whether they should try to catch the Rattata that ran by or focus more on the Pidgey in the air, et cetera. Well, mostly Eli was talking. Bianca just listened, and gave periodic input. The strange thing was, it was almost friendly. Almost. It wasn’t entirely unstrained, but Bianca actually seemed to be contributing information without being forced. With me nearby. I made a mental note to take her to a psychiatrist when we got back.

Ironically, the discussion in front of me was loud enough to scare away most of the Pokémon in the surrounding area, so we made pretty good time to Viridian, and would probably arrive the next afternoon. I never did get an explanation as to why Gramps couldn’t get someone with a car to take us, but the walk wasn’t really that bad. They hadn’t even made an attempt to catch anything by the time we got to lunch.

Speaking of which, “lunch,” when traveling is normally closer to a quick break where one takes their pack off and eats a granola bar or two while drinking a bottle of water than anything you’re thinking of. It takes all of ten minutes if you do it right.

By the time lunch rolled around, I finally got into the conversation. I was the only one in the group who had ever actually been to Viridian City seriously, the job “lab aide” pretty much means “doesn’t get out much”. Well, Bianca doesn’t count. Even if she had lived there, it had been about seven years. And the first thing I’d learned about dealing with her: never bring up Viridian City. Most people ask her about it when they first learn she was born there. Most back off after they realize she doesn’t want to talk about it. I had persisted. She hates me. Anyways, Eli asked me what the city was like.

“Well,” I started, “It’s about twice as big as Pallet Town, and much more official looking. There are government buildings everywhere and quite a few military areas in the city. Really, only the East side of the city has many people living there at all. The only major things in the city would be the Gym, Diglett’s Cave, and the Spatial Monastery. I’m sure you know about at least those three.” I stopped explaining and ripped open another granola bar. Seriously, how much did they want me to say about the place?”

“What’s the Gym?” Eli asked.

I sighed, forgetting that not many people actually cared very much about the place. “It used to be a Pokémon League Gym back before the storm war. After the war it was shut down like all of the rest, but it was opened again about twenty years ago as a training area for trainers. There’s not really a Gym Leader there anymore, but it’s still supposedly a nice place to train,” I answered. I’d actually forgotten about the gym, and wasn’t quite sure why I’d thought of it as one of the three most important places in Viridian. It had been at least three years since I’d been there, and then I hadn’t even cared that much.

Bianca slowly nodded her head. “My brother was almost champion of the gym once. And then,” she stared up at the trees for a moment, “we moved.” Once again, I had to stop and almost stare at Bianca. Her face was relatively stern as usual. But there was something else. Something in the eyes. I couldn’t place it, but I don’t think I’d ever seen her eyes look like that. But before I could really believe it, it was gone. “We’d best get moving,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Shortly after, we packed up and left again. We didn’t stop for another hour or so, when we took a water break. As I went to take care of some business, I heard a slight rustling in the trees above me. I instinctually glanced up, eyeing the trees. There wasn’t any immediate follow-up, but one thing was fairly likely. There was a Pokémon up there. “Hey guys,” I called out. “I think I found something.”

“What?” Bianca replied.

“Well, I can’t exactly tell, but I think it might be a Pokémon,” I shouted back. I don’t really remember why I decided to let them know. It would have made the trip faster if we hadn’t. Maybe I sensed something about the Pokémon. Maybe I just wanted to get the capture over with and spend time in Viridian training. Whatever my reason was, I did. Bianca and Eli were underneath the tree in seconds.

We stood in silence for a few moments, no one really sure of what to do now. “Now what do we do?” Eli asked. Bianca frowned, and I turned around to face him. Even if there was a Pokémon up there, what exactly were we supposed to do? We were interrupted by a weak call from above us.

After living in Pallet for fifteen years, you learn certain things. One of them is everything about Pidgey. Being the most common species in and around the town, bar humans, most residents got to know them. Being a kid obsessed with Pokémon for a while, I had learned everything. So, don’t be surprised if I could tell a lot from the cry. Like the fact that it was an infant. And that it was starving. Put those together, and you reach the most likely explanation for the matter: trainers.

The advent of the Pokéball had changed the world. Rule number one of history: no change is ever entirely good. One of the very few downfalls was right above me. Many times a trainer would catch a mother Pokémon, and never know about the babies. This sounds terrible, but think logically for a moment. Good trainers didn’t really care much about their captures. Attachment was never a good thing, since any serious battle could end in death. And a good trainer would have a good deal of serious battles. Even though the gym system had died, battling still went on as a popular hobby. But what can I say? It’s called the circle of life, and Pidgey weren’t about to go extinct any time soon.

Arceus, I’m terrible with tangents. Back to the story. Alright, now we know what we’re dealing with. Instead of having an unknown creature in the tree, we have a dying baby Pidgey. Great. Now we’ve still got no way to get it out, and I’m compelled to catch the weakest Pokémon I could find. Remind me why I called them over again?

So, back to the standing in silence thing. “Well, we could try to climb up,” Eli proposed. I stared at him, and glanced back to the tree. There weren’t any branches on the thing we could use for climbing. “Oh, right.” More silence. I hate silence.

“Well, unless anyone has an idea as to how we do something useful here, we might as well go,” Bianca begrudgingly grumbled her consent, but Eli still stared at the tree. “Well?” I asked.

“I think I have an idea,” he murmured.

The “S-I-L” word returns. “And?” I growled impatiently.

“It might not work, but,”

“Just do it already,” Bianca and I snapped at the same time. Wow. I don’t think we’d ever done that before in fifteen years. It didn’t comfort me.

“Fine,” Eli sighed. “Marine, go.” His Squirtle appeared at his side. “Alright, I want you to use Water Gun on the ground to shoot yourself up to that branch,” he gestured upwards.

“Squir, Squirtle?” the turtle said, pointing its tiny arm up in the air. I couldn’t tell where it was pointing, and I’m pretty sure Eli couldn’t either. That, or he’d become a turtle whisperer in the last few hours.

“Yes, that one.” Right, the one a few feet up and made of wood. That one.

Squirtle gave a clumsy salute and began to charge a Water Gun. After a few seconds, he unleashed it at the ground and rocketed up. At the peak of his flight, he realized something. He was in the air. I might have the advantage of a few years of study on the matter, but I think most people realize one simple fact. Squirtle can’t fly.

Marine’s expression showed that he’d come to the same realization. He began shouting his name and flailing his arms wildly as he started to fall back to the ground, his objective entirely forgotten. As luck would have it, he did happen to find the nest.

He took that down with him too.

Eli rushed forwards to catch his Squirtle. I stood transfixed, somewhere between apathy, an instinctual need to catch one of the baby Pidgey –there were multiple falling- and a strong desire to say “I told you so.” I chose option d) stand in shock while the mind numbly processes what to do.

Bianca dived forwards to help, and wound up catching the now empty nest and a Pidgey that had fallen with it, not letting it suffer any further harm. Eli managed to pull one of the Pidgey out of its state of 32 meters per second squared, and almost caught Squirtle. Almost.

The blue turtle landed on its back, the shell absorbing most of the impact. He seemed jarred, but not injured at first glance. That left one more Pidgey. I looked up to see if I’d missed it, and was immediately greeted with a view of brown feathers in my face as I fell back from the impact.

“Next time we need to practice landings,” I groaned, and pushed the bird onto my chest, causing the Pidgey to whimper in pain. I gently slid him off of my body, and pulled myself to my knees to survey the damage. It definitely wasn’t as bad as Ivy, but it wasn’t pretty. Her wing, and I could identify her as a female from the markings on her head, was bent back at a strange angle, but there didn’t appear to be any marks on the surface. She was probably in pain, but not going to bleed to death. In fact, if she was kept in a suspended state, she probably would get out just fine.

“Do you want to come with me?” I asked, and immediately bit my lip out of anger. Why had I asked that? The goal here was to find a Pokémon that could actually do something, not build some sort of a handicapped Pokémon Olympics Squad. Unfortunately, she chirped in a way that probably meant yes. I started to pick her up to bring her out into the forest, but couldn’t bring myself to do it. Her chirping was almost musical, upbeat in a way that seemed almost unreal. I wasn’t going to leave her out to die, even if it cost me some valuable training time. I pulled a Pokéball out from the side of my pack and held it over the Pidgey.

“I’m going to call you Siren.”

--SoV—

Alright, before anyone out there accuses me of being too weak, I’d like to reinforce I have a limit. I won’t deal with pathetic bugs. Apparently, I’m the only one in the group who grasped another basic fact of the world. Bug Pokémon are terrible. Common weaknesses combined with generally poor power and bulk leads to a train wreck of evolution that only survives due to numbers. For trainers, they’re just about useless.

Maybe more useful than an injured Pidgey and Bulbasaur though.

Regardless, as soon as camp was set up, Eli walked into the forest with a Pokéball in hand to catch something. Bianca and I just stared after him. Bianca shrugged, and sat down in front of a tree, book in hand. Before she could open it, I realized something. It could take Eli hours to find something out there with the noise he was likely to make. That and he wasn’t very good with noticing details, even very large ones. Another key fact about the world: Bianca and I don’t do very well together, especially with no one else around. Even if she wanted to read her book, I hate silence. Given even another fifteen minutes, I would probably wind up starting a fight. Of course, I had other options. I cleared my throat.

“So, how’s life going?” She glanced up at me, muttered something about following Eli, and walked into the forest. Problem solved. With those two away, I had some free time. I subconsciously pressed something on my belt, and Siren appeared alongside Ivy.

“Alright, let’s get you two fixed up.” I pulled a few bandages and some gauze out of my backpack and set to work. I found a small stick somewhere in the clearing, and used it to make a crude splint for Siren. I also reapplied Ivy’s bandages, cringing at the scarred tissue beneath the bandage and quickly reapplying it, firmer than before. I didn't want to do that frequently.

I glanced down at my watch. They had been gone for thirty minutes. I probably had time to take care of some personal business. Glancing quickly around in nervousness, I pulled a red electronic device from my backpack. A Pokéball symbol was etched into the front, with “Pokédex 3.5” engraved beneath it in black lettering. Altogether, it was a little smaller than a normal laptop. I reached into a side pocket of my backpack, and pulled out a grey computer disk with no markings. I manipulated it nervously for a moment, watching the light reflect onto nearby trees as I twisted the disk. Finally I got up the nerve to put it in.

The Pokédex came to life, the screen beginning to glow as the device loaded. When it finally came up, I scrolled down the options list, until I reached the last one. “Cam99OpDwn4-10-99.” It wasn’t much to go by, but it confirmed what I’d suspected. It was a camera recording from a few years back, around the time I had been born. I took out the small scrap of paper I had found with it. “21:52” was hastily scratched onto it in ink that had since lightened considerably until the note was almost unreadable. I took a deep breath, and pushed my finger down over the play button.

“Hey, Gary!” Eli shouted out in the distance. I swore under my breath, and slid the device back into my backpack. The video would have to wait until later.

Eli came running –sorry, walking- into the clearing, Bianca struggling to keep up behind him. “We caught some Pokémon,” he said, still enthusiastic, but calming down.

“Let me guess, a Weedle?” I replied sarcastically.

He looked minorly hurt, “What’s wrong with Weedle?”

I sighed. This was going to be a long evening. “Other than the fact that it’s got terrible abilities, even in its final form, lacks any sort of a niche another Pokémon can’t do better, and is generally weaker than most every Pokémon ever created by Arceus, I don’t know.”

Bianca had gotten out of the forest by now, but was still trying to catch her breath. She tried to reply, but her response was constantly broken up by panting.

“What’s she saying?” I asked Eli.

He glanced back up at me. “The same could be said about an injured Pidgey.”

--SoV—

The rest of the evening went without incident. Or, at least without fatal incident. In fact, there had been no injuries by the time the sun went down. Gramps would be proud. After dinner, Eli went into his tent almost immediately. Bianca leaned up against a tree, reading her book. I couldn’t quite make out the title, but it had the silhouette of a Kabutops skeleton on the front. “What’re you reading,” I asked.

She glared up, clearly annoyed at my question. “It’s none of your business.” Unfortunately, she didn’t stop reading or go into her tent. That surprised me a little. There are quite a few people who get mad for some reason when you ask them what they’re reading. I never understood why. But if she wasn’t going away, then I had too. I didn’t feel like starting a fight; we still had a long way to Viridian and back.

I started to walk out towards the forest. “Where are you going?” Bianca inquired, glancing up from her book.

“Why do you want to know?” I asked. Answering questions with questions annoys people more than asking them what they’re reading.

She shrugged, and went back to reading her book. “I just wanted to know.”

“Wait, you wanted to know something about me?” I answered with excessive shock. Excessive shock is another one of those things that irritates people.

“If you got killed by a Wild Pokémon, I’d have a hard time explaining it to your grandfather.” Her voice was perfectly neutral now, maybe even a bit upbeat. She wasn’t irritated. I’d done three things to irritate her, the girl who gets irritated by my presence, and she didn’t care. Arceus, she was making my life difficult.

With that, I went back into the forest before my reputation could suffer too much. I guess it was a nice evening. I don’t really pay much attention to that kind of thing, but it probably was. Summer nights in South-West Kanto are generally nice, with the various insects coming out to mate, making their chirps and calls. Another thing you get used to by living in Pallet. But I had other things to think about. Namely the CD I was carrying.

There was a room in the lab that no one ever entered. A padlock guarded the door, the key only found in one location, that happened to be right next to the door. But in order to get the key, one had to insert a ten digit password. Fail twice and alarms go off. Strangely enough, no one ever seemed to show interest. Except for me.

The first time I asked him about it, he’d just said it was for records. I didn’t buy it. What kinds of records get more security than the lab safe? I’d started paying attention after that, watching whenever he entered his password. Eventually I got a pretty good idea of what it was, but I hadn’t acted on it. Until two days ago. I was out late from a meeting with Eli, and most of the people had already left the lab. I walked up to the door as casually as possible, making it look like I was supposed to be there. I inserted the password, thankfully it was correct, and the key dropped out into my hand. A passing aide had stopped me at that time. I’d told him I was on business from Gramps. He bought it, and went on his way, thankfully never reporting it.

The inside of the room was surprisingly bare, with only a file cabinet in the room. It was also locked. In fact, there was only one thing not in the cabinet that Gramps had apparently forgotten to put back in, a single CD with a slip of paper on it. I figured he wouldn’t miss it if I gave it back after the trip, and slipped it into my pocket. I hadn’t gotten the time to watch it until now.

The Pokedex’s light cast strange shadows from the trees, making the night slightly creepy, even for me. A stray cloud moved across the moon, blocking out some of the moonlight and making it even more unnatural. And the forest was silent. All of the bugs had stopped chattering around me, probably because of an intruder, me. But late in the evening when the mind doesn’t make that connection, it’s just creepy.

I scrolled down to Cam99OpDwn4-10-99, and clicked. The Pokedex paused, the screen darkening until a black and white image was pulled up. It was just an empty room, with the only notable features being the bookshelves on the walls and a large desk. Windows behind the desk looked onto something, but it was hard to tell from the camera. Come to think of it, it looked a lot like Gramps’ office. I waited for a minute, but nothing happened.

And then I remembered the sheet of paper. I cursed softly at myself for forgetting, but quickly pulled it out and jumped to the correct time. The office wasn’t empty anymore. A younger Gramps was in the room, pacing back and forth in front of the window, periodically stopping to glance out. He looked worried about something, and furious at the same time. He was probably more concerned and angrier than I had ever seen him. He muttered something under his breath, something about a storm perhaps, but I couldn’t quite catch it. I made a mental note to scroll back and watch it later.

After about a minute or so of the pacing, someone knocked on the door. Gramps glanced up, and called out for the man to come in. I almost dropped the Pokédex. Champion Lance, well, soon-to-be Champion Lance walked through the door, his signature cape flowing behind him. He gave an awkward bow, and rose up, sarcasm dripping in his voice, “Hello master.”

Gramps nodded, and motioned for him to sit down. “Lance, I’m quite busy right now. Is there anything you wanted to talk about, or are you wasting my time?”

Lance shifted in his seat, “Well, it’s about the project.” Gramps motioned to go on. “A few people here were talking, and we decided that we don’t like it.”

“They can just get their ass off of the island then. Only the devoted have a place in Operation Dawn.”

“Oh no, they’re devoted. Just not to you,” Lance rose to his full, rather impressive height. It was impossible to tell from the camera, but I had a strange suspicion he was smiling.

Gramps banged his fist on the disk, “What the hell is this?” he shouted.

Lance laughed, a slow and evil laugh, as he gestured towards the doorway. Whatever was in it made Gramps gasp in surprise and cower back in fear. Words kept forming on his mouth, but none ever left. “This would be a coup.”

The boy and the girl were on the same playground, almost a year later. The friend wasn't there, currently dealing with another problem that neither of them wanted to talk about. "So, you're a pretty good student..." the boy began, for once uncertain of how to finish his sentance.

"Uh huh."

"Well, you want to be a trainer right?"

"Yes."

"Work at the lab?"

The girl looked up. "I don't really know."

"Come on, you've got to have some sort of a dream."

The girl stopped her action immediately, dropping the ball she had been playing with and dropping it to the ground. After a long pause, she replied, "No."

The boy sighed in frustration, annoyed by the response. "But everyone has some kind of a dream. You've got to have one. Working at the lab, becoming the school principle, running a ship, joining the army..." he dropped off as her expression hardened. "Oh, you know it's okay for girls to serve in the army, right? If that's what your worried about, then-"

"It isn't." Her eyes had an intensity about them then that he hadn't seen since he had met her, and he backed off a little out of common sense. However, some part of his mind wanted to rebel against the obvious and feel danger. Or he was just impulsive and stupid. He will firmly deny that possibility.

"Was your dad in the army or something? Did he get killed?"

"SHUT UP!" The girl screamed, causing most of the kids on the playground to look in her direction as she stomped her foot. "Just leave it alone, okay?"

"Fine, if you can't handle your past-"

She lunged forwards and reached for his neck. As a result of the fight, both of them got detentions for the next two weeks.

After finally escaping from Giovanni, Mewtwo finally has a chance to live his life free, and sadly alone... But when fate leads him to something he has never even dreamed of, a female of his own species, his life is turned upside-down...

This chapter was great! I see you took the advice of the previous reviewers because that last chapter really hooked me until the end.

Lots of foreshadowing in this chapter; that video caught me of guard. I also like the POV change to Gary. He has an interesting way of thinking that's fun to read, and you pulled it off brilliantly.This entire draft is really just a nice excercise on multiple POV's for me. Nice to see I pulled off my personal favorite fairly well
I didn't see any typos, and any mistakes in general, but then again, I'm not the most critical reader. The story line is turning out great, and I can't wait for the famed 4th chapter!Fourth Chapter's significance declined when I introduced a few subplots on one level or another in the last chapter. It's still when things get... interesting. It's nice to see I'm doing decently with grammar.
-shiny

Thanks for reviewing! (I'll still give reply reviews on FF.net for LitS. I like reviewing there better.)

From my notes: I'm trying to get back to a chapter at least every two weeks. I'm currently taking a break from writing Chapter Three to reply here, and it's being brutal. I really dislike most people with the personality type I'm trying to write and... it's a challenge. I just hope it goes well (and it is fun to write on some level, if I'm horribly annoyed with my own character). Also, I dropped a few things recently, so I have some time to write I previously didn't have. So, hopefully not another monthlong wait until the next chapter.